When the call came, Tarini Padmanabhuni’s grandfather believed he was talking to his brother. The voice on the other end of the line said he’d been kidnapped and that the only way to get him back was to pay a ransom. Her grandfather paid, only to learn later that his brother had been somewhere else entirely, with no clue any of it was happening. The voice, it turned out, was a…
Modulate raises $25M for its voice models and analysis suite
September 29, 2026
Boston-based voice intelligence startup Modulate has raised $25 million in new funding for its platform that uses an array of small models to offer enterprises transcription, emotional analysis, deepfake and AI music detection, and policy enforcement for voice agents in…
Viral AI agent Instinct raises $1B Series C at a $10B valuation
September 29, 2026
It’s only been a month since AI assistant startup Instinct announced a fundraise that valued it at $2.5 billion, and now the company has already raised another $1 billion from investors, including Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital, and Coatue, valuing the company at…
Can Muse overcome Meta’s trust issues?
September 28, 2026
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Meta’s new AI agent Muse took the spotlight at the company’s annual Connect event, where CEO Mark Zuckerberg made it clear that Facebook’s parent company plans to push AI features everywhere.
On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane, and I discussed Meta’s AI announcements…
Google tests buying from Walmart-owned Flipkart through Gemini and AI Mode in India
September 27, 2026
Google has started testing a way for shoppers in India to buy products from Walmart-owned Flipkart directly through Gemini and AI Mode, as the search giant looks to expand its AI services from product discovery into transactions.
Users in the test see a “Buy”…
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…
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 products. Both Meta staff and the flocks of influencers who frequent the event seemed to arrive with the glasses glued to…
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…
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 major investor in AI companies including Anthropic, xAI, and Databricks. In India, it has backed Sarvam AI, one of the…
