Tech

Periodic Labs came out of stealth on Tuesday with a war chest of $300 million as a seed round, backed by a tech industry’s who’s who: Andreessen Horowitz, DST, Nvidia, Accel, Elad Gil, Jeff Dean, Eric Schmidt, and Jeff Bezos. Period Labs was founded by Ekin Dogus Cubuk and Liam Fedus. Cubuk led the materials and chemistry team at Google …

On Tuesday, OpenAI announced the release of Sora 2, an audio and video generator to succeed last year’s Sora. Along with the model, the company also launched a linked social app called Sora, where users can be able to generate videos of themselves and their friends to share on a TikTok-style algorithmic feed. OpenAI’s work on a new social platform …

What happens when your first 10 hires aren’t people at all? At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, happening October 27–29 at San Francisco’s Moscone West, we’re digging into the new wave of startups replacing or augmenting early employees with AI agents. Think outbound sales, billing, and customer support — automated from day one. This panel, hosted on the Builders Stage, features a …

Fubo, the popular live sports TV streaming service, announced on Tuesday that its shareholders have approved its transaction with Disney, combining Fubo with Hulu Live TV.  Initially announced in January, the deal brings the companies closer to finalizing an agreement that is anticipated to disrupt the streaming industry by making Hulu a far bigger threat to its larger rival, YouTube. …

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to supercharge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth with 300 million weekly active users. 2024 was a big year for OpenAI, from its partnership with Apple for its generative …

The tech layoff wave is still kicking in 2025. Last year saw more than 150,000 job cuts across 549 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. So far this year, more than 22,000 workers have been the victim of reductions across the tech industry, with a staggering 16,084 cuts taking place in February alone. We’re tracking layoffs in the tech …

Chatbot platforms like ChatGPT and Poe have allowed users to create repeated prompts in the form of GPTs and apps. Lately, browsers like Dia and Opera Neon have added a way for people to get repeated tasks done in the form of skills and cards. Now, meeting notetaker Granola is bringing its own spin with a feature called Recipes, which …

Imagine you’re a Formula One driver hurtling down a race track at 200 miles per hour when your engineer comes on the radio and says … something. You can’t make it out, but you’re also not going to spend a lap playing out that old Verizon commercial (“Can you hear me now?”) with the race — and your life — on …

After teaming up with Google on agentic commerce this month, payments giant PayPal announced Tuesday it’s adding new features to its PayPal Honey browser extension. The features will provide AI chatbot users, who are researching items they want to purchase, Honey’s product recommendations, pricing, and access to deals. When users ask their preferred AI chatbot a shopping-related question, PayPal Honey’s extension will display links …

Asahi Group Holdings, the brewery giant that produces the Japanese beer Asahi and other beverages, was hit by a cyberattack Monday that forced the company to stop production in its Japanese factories. The disruption is reportedly still ongoing, but with no timeline for recovery. Asahi Group disclosed the attack in a press release, saying it was experiencing “a system failure” …