Elorian, the Palo Alto AI startup that raised a $55 million seed round at a $300 million valuation before it launched a product, released its first model on Friday, TechCrunch has exclusively learned.
The model, Glimpse, is launching as a research preview with API access and a chat interface. The thesis? Today’s AI models, for all their skill with language and code, still can’t really…
Replit makes OpenAI its default over Anthropic, CEO says
October 18, 2026
Replit, the AI coding platform that has become a favorite of startup founders and developers, is no longer working with Anthropic, the company’s CEO and co-founder Amjad Masad said Thursday while onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt.
Masad said the decision was made for a…
Mark Wahlberg on using AI in film ‘the right way’ and being open to an AI clone carrying on his legacy
October 17, 2026
Even as Hollywood remains divided over the use of AI in filmmaking, actor and director Mark Wahlberg believes the technology has a place in the industry as long as it’s used the right way.
Wahlberg, who’s also an entrepreneur and angel investor, took the stage…
Veritas expands its anti-counterfeit chip to jewelry, trophies, and fragrance bottles
October 17, 2026
Counterfeits of luxury goods are a major problem for fashion houses. Counterfeiters are getting better at replicating brands’ marks and passing off dupes, known as “superfakes,” as genuine items. A startup called Veritas wants to tackle the problem with its own chip that verifies goods.
Veritas was founded by Luci Holland, a former Tesla technical product manager who also has a…
Replit CEO and co-founder Amjad Masad has seen how AI is impacting the workplace firsthand, with businesses adopting his company’s AI coding tools to develop and launch their own software. At TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco on Thursday, Masad shared what Replit has…
AI agents are coming to Rivian’s cars
October 16, 2026
Rivian recently rolled out an AI assistant that lets drivers and passengers interact with the company’s electric vehicles just by talking to them. But the carmaker’s founder and CEO, RJ Scaringe, said at TechCrunch Disrupt this week that, in the future…
Amazon’s personal AI wearable maker, Bee, is announcing its first new products since being acquired by the retail giant last year. The tech company on Thursday introduced the Bee Frontier, the next generation of its device that can be worn on the wrist or pinned to clothes, along with Bee Eclipse, a credit-card-sized device that magnetically attaches to the back of your smartphone.
The…
Design platform Figma announced a new Markdown-based editor to help define a company’s design, bring in design and code libraries, and integrate with the Payload headless content management system during the company’s first Config event in India. Through some of…
Zenzap raises $44M for its AI chat app that aims to replace WhatsApp in the workplace
October 15, 2026
Many businesses around the world use consumer-facing chat apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, or iMessage to talk and coordinate with staff, and exchange documents or data.
Guy Weiss is building Zenzap, a private messenger with AI that wants to help companies communicate…
Floqer is an autonomous customer knowledge platform that provides business-to-business sales and marketing teams with an AI-powered database designed to continuously collect, organize, and update the information used to understand their customers.
Floqer is pitching Wednesday on the Startup Battlefield stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. The startup told TechCrunch ahead of the presentation that it…
