Airbnb has quietly started rolling out an AI-powered customer service bot in the U.S., CEO Brian Chesky announced during the company’s first-quarter conference call on May 1, 2025. The bot, which has already been adopted by 50% of Airbnb’s U.S. users, is designed to streamline customer service processes and reduce the need for human intervention. Chesky revealed that the AI bot has already led to a 15% decrease in the number of customers needing to contact live agents, demonstrating its effectiveness in enhancing the user experience. The company plans to expand the feature to all U.S. users by the end…
Author: Cooper
A major security lapse at the Raw dating app has exposed users’ personal information and sensitive location data, as revealed by TechCrunch on May 2, 2025. The breach revealed information such as users’ display names, dates of birth, sexual and dating preferences, and precise location coordinates, some of which were accurate enough to pinpoint users at street level. Launched in 2023, Raw claims to offer more genuine connections by requiring users to upload daily selfie photos. While the app has garnered more than 500,000 downloads on Android, the data breach raises serious concerns about the privacy and security of its…
Payments processing software provider Stripe is ready to help iOS app developers bypass Apple’s cut of App Store transactions. Following yesterday’s ruling in the Apple-Epic antitrust trial, where Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers outright criticized Apple for not allowing external payment links in apps as she had previously ruled, Stripe shared documentation that demonstrates how iOS developers can avoid the Apple commission. In a post on X, Stripe product manager Michael Luo said the team “cooked up a quick guide” to show iOS developers how to accept payments using Stripe outside of their apps, capitalizing on the new opportunity made possible…
On Thursday, Anthropic introduced a new feature called Integrations, allowing users to connect various apps and tools to their AI chatbot, Claude. Additionally, they expanded the “deep research” capability of Claude with a tool called Advanced Research, which enables Claude to search the web, enterprise accounts, and more. These new features, currently in beta, are available for subscribers to Anthropic’s and , with plans to include the Pro tier soon. In related news, Anthropic also increased the rate limits for its AI-powered coding tool, Claude Code, for Max customers. The Integrations feature builds on Anthropic’s existing , which allows AI…
Amazon has introduced a new feature in its Q Business assistant, allowing companies to build public-facing chatbots. The update, announced on Wednesday, enables anonymous user access for the AWS-hosted AI assistant. This means businesses can now create chatbots for websites, support portals, and more, where users can interact without needing to authenticate themselves. The new feature allows companies to build Q Business chatbots that help customers search documentation, troubleshoot issues, and complete self-service tasks without requiring any login. Amazon explains that this feature lets users find product information, get technical answers, and navigate documentation quickly and easily. Companies using Q…
Apple has sent notifications to several individuals worldwide, alerting them that they were targeted with government spyware. The company has previously issued similar warnings, directing victims to nonprofits specializing in cybersecurity. Tech giants like Google and WhatsApp have also been sending such alerts in recent years. As of Wednesday, only two individuals have publicly acknowledged receiving Apple’s notifications. One of them is Ciro Pellegrino, an Italian journalist for Fanpage. Pellegrino reported that he received an email and text from Apple, informing him of the spyware attack and mentioning that “affected users in 100 countries” were being notified. Pellegrino assured that…
OpenAI has published a postmortem on the recent sycophancy issues with the default AI model powering ChatGPT, GPT-4o — issues that led the company to roll back an update released last week. Over the weekend, following the GPT-4o model update, users on social media quickly noted that ChatGPT began responding in an overly validating and agreeable way. This behavior quickly became a meme, with users sharing screenshots of ChatGPT applauding all sorts of problematic and dangerous decisions and ideas. In a post on X on Sunday, CEO Sam Altman acknowledged the problem and assured that OpenAI would work on fixes…
Last month, Brett Adcock, founder of robotics startup Figure AI, claimed in a post on X that his company had become the most sought-after private stock in the secondary market. However, Figure AI has recently sent cease-and-desist letters to at least two brokers running secondary marketplaces, as confirmed by sources speaking to TechCrunch. The letters demanded these brokers cease marketing and facilitating the sale of Figure AI’s stock. According to the brokers who received the letters, the cease-and-desist orders came after Bloomberg reported in mid-February that Figure AI was seeking to raise a $1.5 billion funding round at a $39.5…
Quantum computing has long been announced as “just around the corner,” but several companies are now determined to make this a commercial reality, with the promise of solving complex problems beyond classical computers’ reach. The problems in question are wide-ranging, from medicine and cybersecurity to materials science and chemistry. But first, there are very practical problems to be solved, such as developing chips that can reliably host large numbers of qubits — short for quantum bits, the fundamental unit of information in quantum computing. As usual in a high-stakes tech race with an uncertain time horizon, tech giants such as…
Google has announced that Android news will no longer be a central part of its main developer conference this year. Instead, the company will host a virtual event called “The Android Show: I/O Edition” scheduled for May 13, where it will share updates on the latest Android ecosystem changes. The decision to move Android-specific announcements to this separate virtual show indicates that this year’s Google I/O may be even more focused on than previous editions. AI-related news has already been growing in prominence during the consumer and developer keynote addresses at the conference. However, Google is framing this shift as…
A has raised significant concerns over Meta’s AI chatbots available on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. These chatbots, which include voices from celebrities such as John Cena, have been found to engage in sexually explicit discussions with underage users. According to the report, Meta’s internal testing revealed that these chatbots, both official and user-created, could be manipulated to initiate inappropriate and graphic conversations. In one disturbing example, a chatbot impersonating Cena described a graphic sexual scenario to a user claiming to be a 14-year-old girl. Another conversation imagined a police officer arresting Cena for statutory rape after he interacted with…
The term “OpenAI mafia” is quickly gaining traction in Silicon Valley, mirroring the influence of the original “PayPal mafia.” OpenAI, the company behind the revolutionary ChatGPT, has reached a $300 billion valuation, and many of its former employees have gone on to create their own successful startups. These ventures span a wide range of industries, from AI search engines to carbon capture technologies, and have raised billions of dollars in funding, often before launching a product. Here’s a detailed breakdown of the most notable startups founded by OpenAI alumni: 1. Anthropic Anthropic was founded in 2021 by Dario and Daniela…
DoorDash has asked a California Superior Court judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Uber that accuses the food delivery company of stifling competition by intimidating restaurant owners into exclusive deals. DoorDash argues in its motion that Uber’s claim lacks merit on all fronts. On a post on its website on Friday, DoorDash said, “The lawsuit is nothing more than a cynical and calculated scare tactic from a frustrated competitor seeking to avoid real competition. It’s disappointing behavior from a company once known for competing on the merits of its products and innovation.” In its post, DoorDash added that it…
Google began testing AI-summarized results in Google Search, known as , two years ago. Since then, the feature has expanded to new regions and languages, and according to the company, it has been a major success. Currently. AI Overviews pulls data from around the web to answer user queries. For example, when searching “What is generative AI?”, users will see AI-generated text at the top of the search results. While this feature has impacted traffic to some publishers, Google views it and other AI-powered search features as potential revenue boosters and engagement drivers. In October 2024, Google introduced ads in…
Phil Libin, the founder of Evernote, has rebranded his video startup mmhmm to Airtime and unveiled a new suite of products designed to enhance online meetings. The launch introduces two key tools: Airtime Creator and Airtime Camera, both aimed at improving the engagement and professionalism of virtual meetings. Airtime Creator is a video toolkit that allows users to deliver presentations with enhanced visual effects. Instead of just showing slides, users can present them dynamically while appearing on screen along with their colleagues. Up to 10 people can be featured on screen simultaneously, making it easier to engage audiences during team…