Foot Traffic
Walmart is embedding its Sparky chatbot inside ChatGPT after OpenAI's Instant Checkout had conversion rates 3x lower than clicking out. Three years of trying to own AI commerce, and the checkout went back to the retailer. ChatGPT isn't the storefront. It's the foot traffic.
OpenAI agrees to acquire Astral, which makes Python tools for developers, to integrate its team into Codex, and says Codex has 2M+ users, up 3x since January
OpenAI plans to acquire Astral, a startup that makes Python tools for developers, marking the ChatGPT maker's latest investment …
Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth says Meta will keep Horizon Worlds in VR “for existing games”, a day after Meta said Quest owners will lose access from June 15
VR Worlds will be available for “foreseeable future” — One day after announcing the wind-down of its Horizon …
Sources: Jeff Bezos is in talks to raise $100B for a fund that would buy companies in industrial sectors such as chipmaking and defense and revamp them with AI
Amazon.com founder has traveled to Middle East, Singapore in fundraising effort linked to Project Prometheus AI startup
Bluesky raised a $100M Series B led by Bain Capital Crypto in April 2025, following a $15M Series A in 2024 and an $8M seed in 2023; it now has over 43M users
Social network Bluesky is gearing up for big changes with today's news that the company raised $100 million in Series B funding.
Sources: Google has started consumer beta testing of a dedicated Gemini AI app for the Mac, as it seeks to compete with Mac apps for ChatGPT and Claude
Google is ramping up development of a dedicated Gemini AI app for Apple Inc.'s Mac computer lineup, looking to step up competition with OpenAI and Anthropic PBC.
Google announces a new “advanced flow” for Android sideloading that requires a mandatory 24-hour cooling-off period to install apps from unverified developers
The one-time ‘advanced flow’ includes 24 hours of cooling off time. … Google has revealed the “advanced flow” …
Mark Zuckerberg's original metaverse vision is effectively over, after renaming Facebook to Meta and spending ~$80B on the endeavor, as his focus shifts to AI
Five years ago, Mark Zuckerberg proclaimed that the future of Facebook would be the metaverse.
Google, iVerify, and Lookout researchers discover DarkSword, a hacking tool used by Russia-sponsored and other hackers to target iOS 18 via Ukrainian websites
A powerful iPhone-hacking technique known as DarkSword has been discovered in use by Russian hackers.
Cursor launches Composer 2, an AI agent trained solely on coding-related data to perform autonomous, lengthy coding tasks, to compete with Anthropic and OpenAI
Rachel Metz /Bloomberg:NEW
Cursor says Composer 2 is “frontier-level at coding” and is priced at $0.50/1M input tokens and $2.50/1M output tokens, with a faster variant costing 3x more
38.0 — 40.0 — 56.9 — These quality improvements come from our first continued pretraining run …
Google updates Stitch to let users turn natural language prompts into UI designs, introducing an “AI-native” software design canvas and a reasoning design agent
Stitch is evolving into an AI-native software design canvas that allows anyone to create, iterate and collaborate on high-fidelity UI from natural language.
Filing: the Pentagon says Anthropic's use of foreign workers, including from China, poses security risks and that its case is “different” from other companies'
The Pentagon is highlighting new national security concerns about Anthropic's use of foreign workers, including from China, according to a court filing.
Meta plans to reduce its reliance on third-party vendors for content moderation, in favor of AI tools that it says are better at spotting scams and other tasks
Meta Platforms Inc. will soon cut back on its use of third-party vendors to help with content moderation, relying instead …
CISA warns US companies to follow Microsoft's recommendations for fortifying Intune, a tool that manages staff access, after a cyberattack on Stryker last week
The US government is warning businesses to secure their corporate accounts within a popular Microsoft Corp. management tool, following a cyberattack on Stryker Corp. last week.
MLB makes Polymarket its official prediction markets platform, giving it exclusive data access; Polymarket will restrict contracts that pose “integrity risk”
On the cusp of opening day and under the cloud of a recent betting scandal, MLB reaches a licensing agreement with event-prediction platform
Sources: Kalshi is raising ~$1B led by Coatue at a $22B valuation, up from the $11B valuation announced in December, and has a revenue run rate of ~$1.5B
Coatue Management is leading the new financing that would total about $1 billion for the prediction-market platform, according to sources
Uber plans to invest $1.25B in Rivian through 2031, contingent on meeting autonomy milestones, starting with $300M at signing, to deploy 50K Level 4 robotaxis
The companies say they plan on deploying 10,000 autonomous Rivian R2 vehicles by 2031. … Uber and Rivian are joining forces …
Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek says the company cut ~12% of its workforce, or ~180 roles, saying the layoffs target roles that “do not adapt” as it integrates AI
Quick Take — Crypto.com cut about 12% of its workforce, or roughly 180 roles based on a previously disclosed headcount of over 1,500 employees.
Google moved some staffers working on Project Mariner, its AI agent that can navigate Chrome and complete tasks on a user's behalf, to higher-priority projects
As Silicon Valley obsesses over a new wave of AI coding agents, Google and other AI labs are shifting their bets.
DoorDash launches Tasks, a new app that pays delivery couriers in some markets to submit video clips and complete other tasks for training AI models
DoorDash Inc. is paying delivery couriers in some markets to submit video clips and complete other digital tasks to help improve artificial intelligence …
Signal's Moxie Marlinspike says his privacy-focused AI platform Confer will integrate its encryption tech into Meta AI to provide E2EE for chatbot interactions
Moxie Marlinspike says the technology powering his end-to-end encrypted AI chatbot, Confer, will be integrated into Meta AI.
Verily raised $300M led by Series X Capital, giving it ~2 years of runway per a source; Alphabet remains an investor but no longer has a controlling stake
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Amazon acquires Zurich-based autonomous robotics startup Rivr, formerly Swiss-Mile; PitchBook: the startup was valued at $110M in an August 2024 funding round
Amazon has acquired autonomous robotics startup Rivr, an Amazon spokesperson confirmed, a deal that could help the commerce …
Ofcom fines 4chan £520K for OSA violations, including £450K for not complying with age check requirements, and gives it until April 2 to implement age assurance
4chan has until 2 April to implement age assurance, carry out a “suitable and sufficient” illegal harms risk assessment …
Adobe launches Firefly Custom Models in public beta, letting users train AI image generators on their own assets; the custom models are private by default
Firefly custom models analyze your assets to preserve character designs and emulate illustration and photography styles.
Nvidia says it will sell 1M GPUs and a broad mix of other chips, including new Groq chips, to AWS by the end of 2027; financial terms were not disclosed
Nvidia (NVDA.O) will sell 1 million of its graphics processing unit chips, along with a host of the AI giant's other offerings …
Oasis Security, which specializes in securing non-human identities, such as AI bots and automated work tools, raised $120M, bringing its total funding to $190M
Oasis Security, a cybersecurity startup that helps companies manage access to their systems from non-human accounts …
Baidu joins Alibaba in raising its prices for its AI computing power-related services by ~5% to 30% and its parallel file storage system by 30% from April 18
The Chinese firms' price increases are ‘a reasonable response to evolving market conditions’, says IDC China analyst Cui Tingting
Privacy-focused MVNO Cape raised a $100M Series C at a $900M valuation, and says its revenue grew from $4.5M in 2024 to $37M in 2025
Cape cofounder and CEO John Doyle is seeing rapid revenue growth for his cell network, which deletes call logs and doesn't collect social security numbers like AT&T and Verizon do.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin raises his total contribution to $45M for the Building a Better California Super PAC, which opposes a proposed 5% billionaire tax
Sergey Brin gives $25m on top of $20m he's already given to Super Pac trying to block state's proposed 5% wealth taxForums:r/DemocraticSocialism,r/politics,r/siliconvalley, andr/CaliforniaForums:r/Dem...
Chinese cities are offering free apartments and office space to attract and subsidize “one-person companies”, or startups run by a single founder with AI's help
Under a national AI push, local governments are turning coworking space and data centers into AI incubators.LinkedIn:Viola ZhouLinkedIn:Viola Zhou:China is mobilizing its entire society to develop and...
Sources: TP-Link told US federal agencies probing its China ties that CEO Jeffrey Chao applied for US permanent residency under the $1M Trump Gold Card program
The Chinese founder of the massive router maker facing national security probes by the Trump administration has applied …
Waymo says its fleet hit 170M+ miles as of December 2025, and its Waymo Driver system was involved in 92% fewer serious-injury crashes than human drivers
Waymo says its robotaxis are involved in 92 percent fewer crashes causing serious injuries or worse than human drivers.
Alphabet's X spins out Anori, which seeks to streamline building approvals through a unified platform for developers and city regulators, with $26M in funding
For more than a decade, Alphabet's X moonshot factory has been quietly trying to fix one of the world's most stubborn industries.
Letters: industry groups pushed back after India proposed in January that Apple, Google, and others consider pre-installing biometric ID app Aadhaar on phones
India's government privately proposed in January that firms like Apple, Samsung and Google consider pre-installing …
Claros, which aims to cut data center energy losses by using voltage regulators that provide power directly to servers' main processors, raised a $30M seed
Claros, a startup with tech that minimizes energy waste at data centers, closed a $30 million seed round co-led by General Catalyst and Red Cell Partners.
The US NHTSA escalates its investigation into Tesla's FSD to an “engineering analysis”, which could result in a recall campaign or other enforcement action
The probe covers about 3.2 million Tesla vehicles — Federal safety regulators are sharpening their focus …
The UK CMA launches an investigation into Adobe, saying early membership cancellation fees for certain products might be in breach of consumer protection laws
The probe will assess Adobe terms and if customers get clear, timely information — U.K. antitrust officials launched …
Sources: Polymarket is looking to hire a chief risk officer following a CFTC demand; the company has expanded its legal team in recent months
DHL Supply Chain says it will open 10 warehouses in 2026 across North America to serve data center operators and component suppliers, totaling 7M+ square feet
DHL Group unit plans to open 10 warehouses across North America to provide logistics services to hyperscalers and their suppliers
Deeptune, which builds high-fidelity reinforcement learning environments that simulate professional workflows for AI agents, raised a $43M Series A led by a16z
AI startup Deeptune has raised a $43 million Series A to build what it calls “training gyms” for AI agents, Fortune has learned exclusively.
Filing: Samsung says it plans to spend ~$73.3B on capital expenditure and research in 2026, up from ~$60B in 2025, and pay ~$6.5B in regular dividends for 2026
Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) said on Thursday that it plans to invest more than 110 trillion won ($73.24 billion) …
The UN-backed World Happiness Report says passively consuming algorithmic social media hurts teens' mental health and heavy use disproportionately affects girls
Passively consuming algorithmic social media hurts teens' mental health, according to the World Happiness Report for 2026 …
Sources: Coinbase and Zerohash are among the companies vying to issue Cloudflare's stablecoin, set to launch this year to support payments for the “agentic web”
Deezer reports a net income of €9M in 2025, its first profit since its 2007 founding, while revenue fell 1.4% YoY to €534M
Paraform, which connects tech companies with specialized recruiters, raised a $40M Series B led by Scale VP
TechInsights: chip manufacturing emissions will climb ~33% to 247M metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030, roughly the same as Algeria's 2024 volume
The rush to boost production of memory chips to meet fast accelerating demand from artificial intelligence will add …
LinkedIn signs The Trade Desk as its first DSP partner for connected TV ads, allowing ad buyers to layer in LinkedIn data to target audiences of professionals
Follow Lara O'Reilly … - LinkedIn wants to help B2B advertisers reach key businesspeople as they watch TV.
Alibaba reports Q3 revenue up 2% YoY ~$41.3B, vs. ~$42B est., and net income down 67% YoY to ~$2.4B, as it seeks to monetize AI to help offset e-commerce losses
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s earnings plunged while revenue barely grew, underscoring the urgency behind the Chinese e-commerce leader's drive …
Paris-based Parallel, which develops AI agents for hospitals and is initially focused on medical coding workflows, raised a $20M Series A led by Index Ventures
Parallel develops AI agents to automate hospital administrative workflows, improving efficiency and reducing manual work across coding, billing, and operations.
Beautiful.ai, which makes AI tools to design presentation slides, raised $45M in non-dilutive financing from GC's Customer Value Fund and says it is profitable
Edra, which says it helps companies automate workflows by turning their operational data into a living knowledge base, raised a $30M Series A led by Sequoia
Edra, a New York-based startup that says it helps companies automate workflows by turning their existing operational data …
NYC-based BusRight, which provides an AI-powered platform to help school bus operators manage routes, communication, and more, raised $30M from Volition Capital
An analysis of a NYT article load finds 422 network requests totaling 49MB, triggering a sprawling programmatic ad auction, an example of “hostile architecture”
If active distraction of readers of your own website was an Olympic Sport, news publications would top the charts every time.
Chip industry executives say chip testing companies are racing to meet AI chip demand; Advantest, Teradyne, and Chroma shares more than tripled in the past year
TAIPEI — Companies in the chip testing supply chain are racing to keep up with a surge in demand as the AI boom drives global appetite …
The UK government withdraws a proposal to let AI companies train on copyrighted works unless creators opt out, after backlash from artists like Dua Lipa
Compute startup Andromeda raised funding from Paradigm at a $1.5B valuation, bringing Paradigm's total to $60M, and passed a $100M revenue run rate in 2025
Once a service spun up by AI investors Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, Andromeda has now raised $60M from Paradigm to stand alone.
PwC US Senior Partner Paul Griggs says partners who resist AI have no place at the firm, and PwC plans to convert some services into AI-powered automated tools
Democratic voters in Illinois rejected most candidates supported by the crypto and AI industries, marking an unexpected defeat after PACs spent $18M+ in a month
Sources: European chip importers are tapping into backup stores and paying more for deliveries as the US-led Iran war disrupts Middle Eastern air freight routes
European companies that import semiconductors from Asia are tapping into backup stores and paying more for deliveries …
Source: Fal, a GenAI model hosting service, is in talks to raise $300M-$350M at an $8B valuation; annualized revenue hits $400M, up from $200M in October 2025
Fal, a fast-growing cloud service for accessing and storing AI models that generate images, video, and audio …
Director Coerte Voorhees says he is using AI to feature Val Kilmer in “a significant part” in an indie film, with the cooperation of the late actor's estate
Advanced Navigation, which makes AI-assisted hardware to let ships and aircraft navigate even when GPS is jammed, raised a $110M Series C at a $1B+ valuation
Micron reports Q2 revenue up 196% YoY to $23.9B, above $19.7B est., expects 2026 capex to exceed $25B, above $22.4B est., and forecasts Q3 revenue above est.
Micron Technology Inc. warned that it will need to spend heavily on production to meet burgeoning demand, overshadowing …
Meta makes its Meta Lab NYC pop-up on Fifth Avenue a permanent flagship location after signing a 10-year lease; Meta's first flagship store in LA opened in 2025
The tech company has signed a decade-long lease for its Meta Lab town house on Fifth Avenue.
US Senator Marsha Blackburn releases a draft of the TRUMP AMERICA AI Act, a federal framework to replace state AI laws, incorporating KOSA and the NO FAKES Act
The Senate has released a draft national framework to replace state laws on artificial intelligence and promote …
Ramp data: Anthropic is capturing ~73% of all spending among companies buying AI tools for the first time, up from a 50/50 split with OpenAI in January
Anthropic is now capturing over 73% of all spending among companies buying AI tools for the first time, according to customer data from Ramp.
Stripe and Paradigm-backed blockchain startup Tempo launch the Machine Payments Protocol, which uses Tempo's new blockchain to handle AI agents' transactions
Senate hearing: FBI Director Kash Patel confirms that the FBI purchases “commercially available information” that can be used to track people's location history
The U.S. Supreme Court has required law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant for getting people's location data …
Cloudflare says it has appealed Italy's €14.2M fine for refusing to block access to pirate websites on its 1.1.1.1 DNS service, calling the amount “staggering”
Cloudflare said it has appealed a fine issued by Italy over the company's refusal to block access to websites on its 1.1.1.1 DNS service.
AppMagic: Apple's revenue from GenAI apps grew from ~$35M in January 2025 to a high of $101M in August 2025, with 75% coming from ChatGPT and only ~5% from Grok
Apple AAPL -1.69%decrease; red down pointing triangle is on pace to surpass $1 billion in artificial-intelligence revenue this year …
Perplexity releases its Comet browser with a built-in AI assistant and a native ad blocker for iOS and iPadOS, after launching it on Android in November 2025
Perplexity's Comet AI browser is coming to iOS and iPadOS today, four months after its previous launch on Android. The mobile browser comes with a built-in AI assistant …
Counterpoint: Apple's China smartphone sales grew 23% YoY in the first nine weeks of 2026, as China's overall market fell 4% YoY amid higher memory chip prices
Apple (AAPL.O) posted a 23% surge in China smartphone sales in the first nine weeks of 2026, bucking a broader market decline …
Google DeepMind appoints Jasjeet Sekhon, Bridgewater's chief scientist and head of AI, as its chief strategy officer; Sekhon helped build Bridgewater's AIA Labs
Investigation: the US FedRAMP authorized Microsoft service GCC High to handle sensitive government data in 2024, despite years of concerns about its security
Sources: Apple stops vibe coding apps from pushing updates, citing rules on running code; Replit thinks Apple may approve opening AI-generated apps in a browser
Meta debuts Creator Fast Track for Facebook, offering big Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube creators $1,000 to $3,000 per month and more reach to post on Facebook
Meta on Wednesday launched a new program aimed at luring top creators from TikTok and YouTube to Facebook, offering guaranteed pay and boosted reach.
Walmart plans to add its Sparky chatbot into ChatGPT and Gemini, after OpenAI's Instant Checkout conversion rates were 3x lower than those with clicking out
After OpenAI's Instant Checkout feature fell short, Walmart is instead embedding its Sparky chatbot directly into ChatGPT and Google Gemini.
Sources: several tech companies, including OpenAI, are encouraging the DOD behind the scenes to back away from designating Anthropic a “supply chain risk”
Tech companies have been reluctant to directly confront Trump administration officials over their contract feud with the A.I. start-up.
Sources: Kraken has paused its IPO plans, amid the downturn in crypto markets since October, and may revisit a listing when market conditions improve
Meta confirms a critical security incident after an internal rogue AI agent's actions led to exposing sensitive data to employees who didn't have authorization
A rogue AI agent recently triggered a major security alert at Meta Platforms, by taking action without approval that led …
Anthropic releases a survey of 80,508 Claude users' hopes, dreams, and fears about AI, calling it “the largest and most multilingual qualitative study ever”
Last December, tens of thousands of Claude users around the world had a conversation with our AI interviewer to share how they use AI …
Figma's stock closed down 7.98% on March 18 after Google updated its Stitch tool for “vibe designing”; FIG is down ~80% since the company's IPO in August 2025
Sure you can use the Figma MCP and Code-to-Canvas tool, but direct integration is an obvious move they need to make sooner rather than laterSean Hodgdon /@seanhodgdon.com:From the Stitch FAQ—something...
OpenAI plans to unify ChatGPT, Codex, and its browser into a desktop “superapp” to simplify the user experience and focus on engineering and business customers
Berber Jin /Wall Street Journal:NEW
Sources: Anthropic met behind closed doors with House Homeland Security and discussed issues like export controls, only briefly touching on its DOD fight
Maria Curi /Axios: