TechCrunch

Where will the next breakout startup come from? Benchmarks full partnership weighs in on the main stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. Save up to $200 before September 25, 11:59 p.m. PT. Register now.

Everyone in the world-models space is sitting on a pile of cash and a ton of buzz, but good luck getting anyone from the founders to their own data suppliers to tell you what they're actually building.

On Equity, we debated whether Ai executives are serious about wanting to slow down.

Vocci's lightweight ring costs $249, and might pose some privacy questions

ScrollEd turns textbooks into a scrollable, Instagram-like feed with video, audio, and quizzes. The Palo Alto startup, founded by student co-founders (and spouses) Utsav Gupta and Rebecca Neff, pitches at TechCrunch Disrupt.

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, the role AI is playing in it. To get this in your inbox, sign up here for free just click TechCrunch Mobility!

Brynn Putnam and Tristan Walker have already done something that most founders only dream about: created companies so compelling that bigger outfits bought them. Putnam, a trained ballerina with a small chain of boutique studios, built the connected-fitness company Mirror and sold it to Lululemon for $500 million in cash less than three years later. []

Current ticket pricing ends in 6 days on Sept. 25 at 11:59 p.m. PT. Join 10,000+ founders, investors and tech leaders at Disrupt and save up to $200 on your ticket until then.

Without buyouts, Flock would almost certainly need to lay off staff.

Trump claimed, without evidence, that the AI backlash is a Democratic hoax.

Navy CTO Justin Fanelli talks co-investing alongside VCs instead of funding early research himself, recent buys like a $562 million autonomous refueling deal, and the Navy's updated wish list from AI to quantum for where founders should be building next.

This week two conversations about AI safety went viral that demonstrate just how hard it is to discern AI fact from fiction.

Petlibro's new Granary 2 smart feeders use a built-in scale and (on pricier models) an AI camera to track exactly how much your cat is eating and when though the fanciest health-monitoring features will cost you an extra subscription.

Vals AI is hoping to make AI benchmarking a more neutral and trustworthy resource in a world increasingly inundated by AI models.

Truecaller says the one-way sharing requirement would hand a commercially valuable proprietary asset to telecom operators.

UP.Labs, now doing business under the name Vantora, is building startups for industrial corporations.

AI leaders have been promising that AI is the key to curing human disease. Anthropic researchers have also been warning that AI might kill us all.

Its important for service members to understand the uncertainty inherent to LLMs, a GovAI research scholar warns.

Availability of Apple's iPhone 18 Pro series turned patchy within hours of its debut on India's quick-commerce apps.

An aircraft equipped with Joby Aviation's autonomy technology flew across the United States without a human pilot taking control at any point.

A week after an Anthropic researchers doomsday warning rattled the AI world, the companys CEO Dario Amodei hasoutlined his plan to pace the frontierof AI development. The proposal leans on independent safety evaluators and coordination between AI labs in democratic countries, anditsalready picked up someindustry support, along with some pointedpushback from Nvidias Jensen Huang. Watch []

Manus, which earlier this year had to break off a merger with Meta, is in discussions to raise $500M at a $4B valuation.

Whether it's a permanent shift or part of a familiar cycle is worth asking, though.

The feds are said to be investigating the compromise of the tankers' networks, which in one case interfered with one of the tanker's navigation and propulsion systems.

Nvidia's Nader Khalil and Sydney Sykes discuss one of the decisions shaping next-gen startups on the Builders Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026.

Inertia co-founder and CEO Jeff Lawson joins the Smart Systems Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. Register now to save up to $200 by September 25.

Security researchers used Anthropics Claude to exploit vulnerabilities in OpenAIs systems, taking over employee accounts and gaining access to an internal code repository before reporting the flaws.

Last day to book your exhibit table at Disrupt is today, September 18. Get your startup in front of 10,000+ founders, investors, operators, and tech leaders on October 1315.