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Musk's xAI launches Grok 4.1 with lower hallucination rate on the web and apps — no API access (for now)

In what appeared to be a bid to soak up some of Google's limelight prior to the launch of its new Gemini 3 flagship AI model — now recorded as the most powerful LLM in the world by multiple independent evaluators — Elon Musk's rival AI startup xAI last night unveiled its newest large language model, Grok 4.1.The model is now live for consumer use on Grok.com, social network X (formerly Twitter), and the company’s iOS and Android mobile apps, and it arrives with major architectural and

AI data center provider Lambda raises whopping $1.5B after multibillion-dollar Microsoft deal 

Lambda's new raise was a solid beat over the amount that deal-watchers say it was hoping to hit.

Meta wins antitrust trial as judge denies that it’s a monopoly

A federal judge ruled that Meta is not a monopoly in a lawsuit with the FTC.

Monarch Tractor sued over tractors that were ‘unable to operate autonomously’

Burks Tractor, a dealership located in Idaho, has sued Monarch for breach of contract and allegedly violating its warranty because the California-based startup's tractors were "unable to operate autonomously." The dealership also says the 10 tractors it purchased "continue to experience significant problems," and calls them "defective."

Toyota keeps betting on hybrid vehicles in the US

The investment follows an announcement last week that Toyota will spend up to $10 billion over the next five years in the United States.

Poe’s AI app now supports group chats across AI models

Quora's AI platform Poe now lets users engage in group chats with up to 200 people across AI models and bots.

a16z leads $21M Series A into AI-native tax compliance software Sphere

Sphere helps automate registration, calculation, filing, and remittance obligations for companies. “We help companies collect tax on customer transactions,” Nicholas Rudder said, explaining that companies have to collect tax on purchases and remit it to authorities each month or quarter. 

‘Our funds are 20 years old’: Limited partners confront VCs’ liquidity crisis

Venture funds have longer timelines than anyone planned for, compelling LPs to rip up and rebuild their allocation models.

Hank Green’s Focus Friend is Google Play’s app of the year

In a year that again saw AI assistants and tools climb the app store charts over and over, it's interesting to see a timer that helps you disconnect from your tech winning Google's highest app award.

Microsoft's Fabric IQ teaches AI agents to understand business operations, not just data patterns

Semantic intelligence is a critical element of actually understanding what data means and how it can be used.Microsoft is now deeply integrating semantics and ontologies into its  Fabric data platform with its new Fabric IQ technology that it debuted at the Microsoft Ignite conference Tuesday.Fabric IQ is a semantic intelligence layer designed to address a fundamental problem with enterprise AI agents: Effectiveness depends not just on dataset size but on how well data reflects actual business o

Microsoft remakes Windows for an era of autonomous AI agents

Microsoft is fundamentally restructuring its Windows operating system to become what executives call the first "agentic OS," embedding the infrastructure needed for autonomous AI agents to operate securely at enterprise scale — a watershed moment in the evolution of personal computing that positions the 40-year-old platform as the foundation for a new era of human-machine collaboration.The company announced Tuesday at its Ignite conference that it is introducing native agent infrastruc

Writer's AI agents can actually do your work—not just chat about it

Writer, a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence startup, is launching a unified AI agent platform designed to let any employee automate complex business workflows without writing code — a capability the company says distinguishes it from consumer-oriented tools like Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT.The platform, called Writer Agent, combines chat-based assistance with autonomous task execution in a single interface. Starting Tuesday, enterprise customers can use natural language to instruct t

Google unveils Gemini 3 claiming the lead in math, science, multimodal and agentic AI benchmarks

After more than a month of rumors and feverish speculation — including Polymarket wagering on the release date — Google today unveiled Gemini 3, its newest proprietary frontier model family and the company’s most comprehensive AI release since the Gemini line debuted in 2023. The models are proprietary (closed-source), available exclusively through Google products, developer platforms, and paid APIs, including Google AI Studio, Vertex AI, the Gemini command line interface (CLI) for developers, a

Google launches Gemini 3 with new coding app and record benchmark scores

Google released Gemini 3, its latest and most advanced foundation model, to be made immediately available through the Gemini app and AI search interface.

Snapchat rolls out ‘Topic Chats’ for public conversations

The social network says the new feature will let users chat about what’s happening in the world and across various communities, from Formula 1 to the reality TV show "Below Deck."

How AI tax startup Blue J torched its entire business model for ChatGPT—and became a $300 million company

In the winter of 2022, as the tech world was becoming mesmerized by the sudden, explosive arrival of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Benjamin Alarie faced a pivotal choice. His legal tech startup, Blue J, had a respectable business built on the AI of a bygone era, serving hundreds of accounting firms with predictive models. But it had hit a ceiling.Alarie, a tenured tax law professor at the University of Toronto, saw the nascent, error-prone, yet powerful capabilities of large language models not as a curiosi

Intuit signs $100M+ deal with OpenAI to bring its apps to ChatGPT

Intuit said its tools, such as TurboTax, Credit Karma, QuickBooks and Mailchimp, will be accessible through ChatGPT, allowing users to ask questions and complete tasks such as estimating tax refunds, reviewing credit options, or managing business finances.

Elon Musk issues warning about ‘potentially hostile alien threat’ that could ‘kill most of human life’

Harvard professor Avi Loeb went as far as claiming there was a 30 to 40 percent chance of it not being a 'naturally formed' ...

Elon Musk's X goes down as thousands report outages in the US

Elon Musk’s social media platform X experienced a major outage in the US on Tuesday, affecting thousands of users, according ...

Elon Musk calls Billie Eilish ‘not the sharpest tool in the shed’ in online spat

Elon Musk has called Billie Eilish not the ‘sharpest tool in the shed’ after she shared a post about what he could do with ...