Author: Advanced AI Editor
By David Wong and Joel Hron When ChatGPT launched in late 2022, it was a wake-up call for many companies. For us, it wasn’t just a signal, it was a catalyst. It validated the long-held ambitions of our engineers and product leaders to apply AI in solving the kinds of customer problems we had struggled to crack with earlier-generation technologies. Traditional chat-based interfaces, while useful for reactive tasks, often struggle to stay aligned with user goals, handle multistep reasoning or take meaningful action. They can be more like teammates waiting for the next assignment than ones who anticipate needs. David…
The countdown is on: The application to host a Side Event at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 closes tonight at 11:59 p.m. PT. If you’ve been considering a way to amplify your brand during the week’s tech epicenter, now is the time to lock it in. Your Side Event could be the dinner everyone’s still talking about, the panel that sparks a deal, or the happy hour that launches a new collaboration. With 10,000+ Disrupt attendees in San Francisco — plus the global spotlight of TechCrunch promotion — your event won’t just happen. It will resonate. Image Credits:Slava Blazer Photography Today’s deadline is…
AI language models like the kind that power ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude excel at producing exactly this kind of believable fiction when they lack actual information on a topic because they first and foremost produce plausible outputs, not accurate ones. If there are no patterns in the dataset that match what the user is seeking they will create the best approximation based on statistical patterns learned during training. Even AI models that can search the web for real sources can potentially fabricate citations, choose the wrong ones, or mischaracterize them. “Errors happen. Made-up citations are a totally different thing where…
Britannica, which is being represented by lawyers from Susman Godfrey, did not specify how much money it was seeking in damages.The lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges Perplexity’s summaries use information generated from Britannica. Those summaries keep users from clicking on Britannica sites, denying the publisher the opportunity to sell subscriptions or generate advertising revenue from site visits, according to the complaint.“Perplexity’s so-called ‘answer engine’ eliminates users’ clicks on Plaintiffs’ and other web publishers’ websites—and, in turn, starves web publishers of revenue—by generating responses to users’ queries that substitute the…
Artist Nicholas Galanin said he pulled out of a symposium related to a Smithsonian American Art Museum exhibition, claiming that he was asked not to record the event or share footage of it on social media. That show, “The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture,” was one of the exhibitions singled out by Donald Trump in an executive order earlier this year about the Smithsonian’s museums. He claimed those institutions had “come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.” The exhibition itself, Trump wrote, “promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a…
Tesla’s Board of Directors has proposed a new pay package for company CEO Elon Musk that would result in $1 trillion in stock offerings if he is able to meet several lofty performance targets. Musk, who has not been meaningfully compensated since 2017, completed his last pay package by delivering billions in shareholder value through a variety of performance-based “tranches,” which were met and resulted in the award of billions in stock. Elon Musk’s new pay plan ties trillionaire status to Tesla’s $8.5 trillion valuation However, Musk was unable to claim this award due to a ruling by the Delaware…
It took mere hours for the internet to spin out on conspiracies about the murder of Charlie Kirk — who died yesterday after being shot at a public event in Utah — according to reports.The far-right commentator, who often engaged in vitriolic debates about immigration, gun control, and abortion on college campuses, was killed while on a university tour with his conservative media group, Turning Point USA. The organization has spent the last decade building conservative youth coalitions at top universities and has become closely affiliated with the nationalist MAGA movement and President Trump. As early reports of the incident…
Dive Brief: Citi appointed former IBM executive Shobhit Varshney as its head of AI, COO Anand Selvakesari said in a Tuesday internal memo reviewed by CIO Dive. Varshney will report to Selvakesari and partner with Citi’s broader executive management team, including Chief Technology Officer David Griffiths. Varshney spent just over 13 years at IBM in various leadership positions — most recently as its head of data and AI, leading IBM Consulting’s AI and data business in the U.S., Canada and Latin America. “His deep experience driving major AI transformations at large organizations makes him an incredible addition to our team,” Selvakesari wrote in…
This week, the Trump administration released a strategy for improving the health and well-being of American children. The report was titled—you guessed it—Make Our Children Healthy Again. It suggests American children should be eating more healthily. And they should be getting more exercise. But there’s a glaring omission. The leading cause of death for American children and teenagers isn’t ultraprocessed food or exposure to some chemical. It’s gun violence. This week’s news of yet more high-profile shootings at schools in the US throws this disconnect into even sharper relief. Experts believe it is time to treat gun violence in the…
Listen to the article 3 min This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Dive Brief: Despite speculation that AI will replace human customer service agents, Gartner anticipates that no Fortune 500 companies will eliminate human agents by 2028. The analyst firm also predicts that among those organizations that expect to severely reduce contact center headcount due to AI, half will drop such plans by 2027. Most simple customer service requests have already been automated, Kathy Ross, senior director analyst at Gartner, said in an email. “The remaining customer service is inherently complex — and the…