Tech

When Donnell Beverly Jr. decided to launch end-of-life planning startup Eazewell after the loss of both of his parents, he knew exactly who to call to help launch the business: longtime friend, and nine-time NBA All Star, Russell Westbrook.   “The main thesis with Russ across every business that he touches is how do we impact people?” Beverly Jr. [pictured above] told TechCrunch. “He’s been very vocal about that throughout his career.  I always …

Last month, Gusto, a payroll and HR software company, announced that it agreed to acquire Guideline, a startup offering retirement plans to small and medium businesses.   The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but Gusto paid approximately $600 million, according to a source familiar with the deal, although TechCrunch could not confirm how much of this was cash and how …

Iman Clark, CEO of Prickly Pear Health, says she had an epiphany that eventually led her to TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025.   It was around nine years ago. She moved from Tunisia to the U.S. for grad school, then joined a company that created gamified experiences for people with neurodegenerative conditions, like dementia. This was done by giving …

AI isn’t just crunching data — it’s helping humans dream bigger. At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, three leaders from TwelveLabs, Wonder Dynamics (an Autodesk company), and Pocket Entertainment, at the intersection of creativity and AI, will explore how machines are becoming co-creators in storytelling, film, and media. Together, they’ll dive into how AI is blurring the lines between artist and algorithm, …

We have reached a place in the AI lifecycle where we’re seeing a lot of “X meets Y” applications. Multiple companies are already releasing “AI meets TikTok” apps, for instance. Now, Berlin- and New York-based startup Deta is marrying AI browsers and something like Google’s NotebookLM in a new knowledge management app called Surf. Deta Surf, which is launching in …

Amazon on Wednesday announced the debut of Amazon Grocery, a new private-label brand that offers a range of grocery items, most of which are priced under $5. The brand offers everything from milk and olive oil to fresh produce, meat, and seafood. Amazon Fresh grocery items will be available online and at Amazon Fresh stores. The new label combines the …

Meta announced on Wednesday that data collected from user interactions with its AI products will soon be used to sell targeted ads across its social media platforms. The company will update its privacy policy by December 16 to reflect the change, and will notify users in the coming days. The new policy applies globally, except for users in South Korea, …

Enterprise giant Salesforce is looking to ride the vibe coding wave — where developers describe what they want in natural language and AI agents write the code — with its new AI-powered developer tool.   Salesforce announced its new vibe coding offering, Agentforce Vibes, on Wednesday. This new coding tool helps developers work autonomously on Salesforce apps and agents by handling much of the technical implementation automatically. Agentforce Vibes can help developers from the app idea phase to building to observability with enterprise …

Fortnite maker Epic Games said that Apple’s new installation workflow, implemented in iOS 18.6, has had a positive impact on its user growth, with a 60% decrease in drop-offs. Apple started allowing EU users to install alternative marketplaces earlier this year under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). At that time, the installation process was lengthier and involved multiple “scare screens” …

On Wednesday, Wikimedia Deutschland announced a new database that will make Wikipedia’s wealth of knowledge more accessible to AI models. Called the Wikidata Embedding Project, the system applies a vector-based semantic search — a technique that helps computers understand the meaning and relationships between words — to the existing data on Wikipedia and its sister platforms, consisting of nearly 120 …