While AI agents are increasingly capable of solving customer support problems, most people can still tell immediately when they’re talking to a machine instead of a human.
Smallest.ai, a startup founded in late 2024, is betting the next leap in voice agents will not come from making large language models faster, but from using smaller, specialized models built for human conversation. Simply…
Executive search firm Christian & Timbers estimates that there are only about 2,000 engineers in the U.S. with the special cocktail of sector know-how, gravitas, and hands-on applied AI experience needed to consistently help enterprises see a return on their AI…
Earlier this month, AI dataset platform Hugging Face shocked the world when it revealed that it had fallen victim to a fully autonomous AI-powered cyberattack. Days later, the story took another dramatic twist when OpenAI admitted that the hacker behind the breach was one of…
We already know that making AI work will mean bringing a lot of new data centers and power infrastructure online. But all those infrastructure projects may also need a bit of help from AI.
On Thursday, a new AI compliance company called Dili that squarely targets the new crop of U.S. infrastructure projects, said it had raised $15 million in Series A funding. The round comes on the heels of a $6.7…
Hint, a new AI startup co-founded by Martha Stewart, offers an AI assistant for homeowners
July 30, 2026
Martha Stewart is entering the AI software era in the most Martha Stewart way possible: She has joined the co-founding team at Hint, an app that leverages AI technology to manage the tasks surrounding home maintenance and management. With the Hint app, which launches today…
Encore AI, a startup that studies companies’ customer interactions to train and deploy AI voice agents that can work alongside customer support and sales teams, or operate autonomously, has raised $30 million in a Series A round led by Team8.
Founded in 2022 as Insait…
New York-based AI detection startup Pangram is on a mission to combat the AI slop infestation spreading across the internet, and it just raised $9 million on a bet that demand for tools that distinguish human-generated content from AI-generated text will only grow.
Pangram’s fundraise – led by Menlo Ventures, with participation from Haystack, ScOp, Script Capital, and Cadenza –…
Sam Altman is ready to decelerate
July 29, 2026
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says that it may be time to “pace” AI development so the world will be ready for it.
“We may have to pace the rate of AI development to give ourselves enough time for society to harden around some of these new capability levels,”…
The market for AI-generated voice models is massive. Creative use cases require AI voice models to be more expressive, while enterprises looking to automate customer support and sales ops need them to be more steerable.
Palo Alto-based Fish Audio wants to cater to all of…
Cursor makes its biggest India push yet ahead of SpaceX acquisition with localized pricing
July 29, 2026
Weeks before its expected acquisition by SpaceX closes, AI coding startup Cursor is making its biggest push into India yet, launching its first country-specific subscription as the company bets on one of the world’s largest developer markets to drive its next stage of growth.
On Monday, the startup introduced Cursor Start, a ₹649-a-month (about $7) subscription built specifically for India…
