Whether you like it or not, Amazon continues to put AI at the center of the shopping journey. The company announced “Alexa for Shopping,” its new personalized AI shopping assistant, powered by Alexa+. Notably, the experience will replace Rufus, its generative AI shopping assistant that launched in 2024. According to the...
Bret Taylor’s AI startup Sierra is raising a $950 million funding round led by Tiger Global and GV, the company announced, pushing its post-money valuation above $15 billion. The raise gives Sierra more than $1 billion to work with — capital the company says it will...
As AI-generated artists and tracks flood music streaming platforms, Spotify is rolling out a new “Verified by Spotify” badge to help listeners more easily identify authentic human artists. To receive the badge, artists must meet certain criteria. Spotify looks for an identifiable artist presence both...
Shapes, an app where humans and AI characters chat together in shared group conversations, is emerging from stealth with $8 million in seed funding. Think Discord, but with AI characters alongside humans. Founded in 2022, Shapes has more than 400,000 monthly active users. The app’s founders,...
Meta announced an improved Meta Account system designed to make it easier for users to sign in and manage their Meta accounts and devices. The Meta ecosystem has become so expansive that it almost feels unwieldy — users might have various different accounts and log-ins for Facebook,...
For years, existing consumer platforms have tried to keep users within their app by offering more services. After the rise of the AI chatbot, the trend is to have people use the assistant for both queries and actions without leaving the conversational flow. With its...
Since its launch in 2021, Gizmo, an AI-powered learning platform that transforms students’ notes into interactive study materials, has attracted more than 13 million users across over 120 countries. And, as user adoption increases, investor interest is following suit. The company recently secured $22 million in Series A funding....
Last October, Adobe previewed a new assistant under the “Project Moonlight” moniker that could do tasks for you by tapping different Adobe apps like Acrobat, Photoshop, and Express. That product is now being launched as Firefly AI Assistant. The Firefly AI Assistant will be available in public...
Meta’s AI app has seen a sizable jump in installs following the launch of the company’s newest AI model, Muse Spark — its first model release under Alexandr Wang, the head of Meta’s Superintelligence Labs who was recruited from Scale AI last year to overhaul the social...
Google is rolling out new features to make it easier for users to contribute local knowledge to Maps. Most notably, Gemini can now create captions when users are looking to share a photo or video about a place. Once users select photos that they want...
