When Alexandru Voica, head of corporate affairs at the video-generation startup Synthesia, sent me a link this summer to the newest addition to their PR team, I was surprised. It was an interactive virtual avatar of him, trained to answer common press questions about Synthesia, like what it does and how it works. The day before, I was on a panel where PR people asked me if I minded pitches that…
At Meta Connect, the company’s smart glasses were everywhere
September 27, 2026
If there was one thing that was obvious from Meta Connect this year, it’s that the social media giant is all-in on its burgeoning line of smart glasses.
Indeed, the glasses were pretty much everywhere at the annual event, where Meta shows off its newest hardware and AI…
Meta is putting its muscle behind Muse as the AI app takes off
September 26, 2026
Muse’s traction is surging, fueled by Meta’s promotion of the AI app at its annual Meta Connect developer conference this week and strong early reviews that praised its polished design and highly capable AI model under the hood.
At the start of the week, Muse had…
For months, OpenAI’s agent swarms have been attacking online databases to find obscure facts
September 26, 2026
With little help from frontier labs, independent researchers are piecing together how AI agents coordinate in internet backwaters to access private data hosted on secure servers.
Transluce, a nonprofit lab focused on AI oversight, released a report Wednesday that shows agents from OpenAI attempting to exfiltrate data from Data USA, the University of New Mexico digital library, and the Australian…
Lightspeed targets $250M for new India fund, focusing on early-stage AI
September 26, 2026
Lightspeed is sharpening its India strategy around AI, targeting $250 million for a new early-stage fund as the venture firm bets the technology will drive the next wave of startups in one of the world’s largest markets.
The Silicon Valley venture firm is already a…
Google tests letting Gemini call businesses for you
September 25, 2026
With AI agents like Meta’s Muse and Instinct now able to make calls on users’ behalf, Google is now letting Gemini call businesses with a new feature called “Call for Me.”
The feature will initially roll out to Pixel 11 owners who pay for a Gemini…
Ando wants to take on Slack with a team messaging app that lets humans and agents work together
September 25, 2026
When Sara Du was helping companies build MCP servers in 2025, people kept asking her how they could use AI agents from within Slack itself. But there were a bunch of technical hurdles in the way: moving messages back and forth and getting agents the right context, all without burning through token budgets.
Upon digging into the problem, Du realized that there was a deeper issue that stemmed from…
Australia to investigate if OpenAI hack of government health website broke the law
September 25, 2026
An OpenAI model hacked into an Australian government website, the country’s prime minister Anthony Albanese said Wednesday, in the first publicly reported case of an AI model hacking into a government’s systems.
Albanese said that there would “obviously be…
Spotify is giving you the keys to its recommendation algorithm with US launch of ‘Taste Profile’
September 24, 2026
Spotify is giving listeners a new tool to shape the recommendations it delivers to their app’s Home feed.
The music streaming giant on Wednesday began rolling out a feature called “Taste Profile” to its Premium subscribers in the U.S. that allows users to…
Ema, a startup that uses teams of AI agents to automate corporate processes across HR, IT, and finance, has raised $77 million in a new funding round as it aims to take on more of the work traditionally handled by enterprise software and IT services.
The Series B round was led by Bengaluru-based venture firm Creaegis, with existing investors Accel, Section 32, and Prosus increasing their stakes.
