Amazon unveils Nova Act, an AI agent that can control a web browser

Amazon on Monday unveiled Nova Act, a general-purpose AI agent that can take control of a web browser and independently perform some simple actions. Alongside the new agentic AI model, Amazon is releasing the Nova Act SDK, a toolkit that allows developers to build agent prototypes with Nova Act. Nova Act, developed by Amazon’s recently

Apple reportedly revamping Health app to add an AI coach

Apple is developing a new version of its Health app that includes an AI coach that can advise users on how to get healthier, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Gurman first reported that something like this was in the works back in 2023, but now he says development is moving ahead, with the new features

Perplexity CEO denies having financial issues, says no IPO before 2028

Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas recently took to Reddit to address users’ product complaints and reassure them that the company is not under serious financial pressure. Srinivas seemed to be responding, in part, to a user theory that the company is “doing horribly financially” and “making lots of changes to cut costs.” As an example, the

The hottest AI models, what they do, and how to use them

AI models are being cranked out at a dizzying pace, by everyone from Big Tech companies like Google to startups like OpenAI and Anthropic. Keeping track of the latest ones can be overwhelming.  Adding to the confusion is that AI models are often promoted based on industry benchmarks. But these technical metrics often reveal little

Sam Altman firing drama detailed in new book excerpt

An excerpt from the upcoming book “The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future” offers new details about why OpenAI’s board briefly fired CEO Sam Altman back in 2023. Written by Wall Street Journal reporter Keach Hagey, the book claims the nonprofit’s board members became increasingly concerned after learning about issues

ChatGPT’s image-generation feature gets an upgrade

During a livestream on Tuesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced the first major upgrade to ChatGPT’s image-generation capabilities in over a year. ChatGPT can now leverage the company’s GPT-4o model to natively create and modify images and photos. GPT-4o has long underpinned the AI-powered chatbot platform, but until now, the model has been able to

Earth AI’s algorithms found critical minerals in places everyone else ignored

Last summer, mining startup KoBold made a splash when it said it had discovered in Zambia one of the world’s largest copper deposits in more than a decade. Now, another startup, Earth AI, exclusively told TechCrunch about its own discovery: promising deposits of critical minerals in parts of Australia that other mining outfits had ignored

Microsoft adds AI-powered deep research tools to Copilot

Microsoft is introducing a “deep research” AI-powered tool in Microsoft 365 Copilot, its AI chatbot app. There’s been a raft of deep research agents launched recently across chatbots, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and xAI’s Grok. Powering them are reasoning AI models, which posses the ability to think through problems and fact-check themselves — skills