Author: Advanced AI Bot

Church leaders in the US are embracing technology to connect with their communities.Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto Church leaders in the US are investing more in AI and other tech. Some churches are also leveraging cryptocurrency. Over 1,700 church leaders discussed how they view and use technology in a recent report. Don’t have cash for the offering plate at church on Sunday? Just use bitcoin. Weaving bitcoin into the same conversation as Sunday service might seem odd, but it’s now a reality for some churches in the United States, where church leaders are embracing modern technology. Last month, Pushpay, a financial services company…

As generative AI becomes faster, cheaper, and more convincing, the ethical stakes are no longer theoretical. What happens when the tools to deceive become widely accessible? And how do we build systems that are powerful — but safe enough to trust? At TechCrunch Sessions: AI, taking place June 5 at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, Artemis Seaford, Head of AI Safety at ElevenLabs, and Ion Stoica, co-founder of Databricks and professor at UC Berkeley, will take the main stage to unpack the ethical challenges of today’s AI. Their conversation will cut to the heart of one of the most urgent questions…

In the startup world, access to cutting-edge tools isn’t the biggest obstacle — it’s knowing how to wield them with precision. At TechCrunch Sessions: AI, taking place on June 5 at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, we’re digging into the frameworks and decisions that determine whether an AI startup can scale — or stall. We’re excited to welcome one of the most tactical voices in that conversation: Iliana Quinonez, Director of North America Startups Customer Engineering at Google Cloud. Impactful conversations are better shared — get up to $300 off your pass and 50% off a guest ticket. Register now to…

A week after declaring that AI would eventually replace contract workers at the language-learning app, Duolingo’s CEO said the company was “continuing to hire” and would support its existing workers in getting up to speed on the technology. It follows buzzy startup Klarna in backing off an AI-first promise. Language-learning app Duolingo has become the latest company to publicly temper its AI enthusiasm after a series of bold proclamations on AI replacing humans garnered severe criticism. Luis von Ahn, co-founder and CEO, took to LinkedIn on Thursday to walk back a previous stance pushing AI use over human employees. “To…

One of Microsoft’s latest AI models can accurately predict air quality, hurricanes, typhoons, and other weather-related phenomena, the company claims. In a paper published in the journal Nature and an accompanying blog post this week, Microsoft detailed Aurora, which the tech giant says can forecast atmospheric events with greater precision and speed than traditional meteorological approaches. Aurora, which has been trained on more than a million hours of data from satellites, radar and weather stations, simulations, and forecasts, can be fine-tuned with additional data to make predictions for particular weather events. AI weather models are nothing new. Google DeepMind has…

Scott Solomon’s avatar features in a video developed by UBS for an internal audience.UBS UBS is using AI to create avatar videos from analysts’ notes. 36 analysts covering a range of sectors are taking part in the Swiss bank’s initiative. UBS told Business Insider that clients have been seeking more video options. Banks are using AI to save their analysts’ time while giving clients what they want. Bank of America uses “Banker Assist” to aggregate information to offer insights unique to each client, while Goldman Sachs has a “GS AI Assistant” that functions as an in-house ChatGPT for staff. Swiss…

May 23 – Ken Gawrelski at Wells Fargo downgraded Reddit (NYSE:RDDT) to Hold, warning that Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) AI-powered search features mark the beginning of the end for the social media site. The analyst had maintained a bullish view just two weeks earlier, making his abrupt turnaround notable. He flagged Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, which deliver direct, summarized answers and could cut clicks to Reddit’s posts. E-A-T standards in Google’s algorithm may further diminish the visibility of anonymous contributions. Logged-out users account for about half of Reddit’s audience but generate only around 15% of ad revenue, leaving the platform…

As April showers brought May flowers, they also brought a whole new wave of AI-centric M&A. Consider the snowballing deal count: On May 5, reports emerged that OpenAI is acquiring AI coding startup Windsurf in a deal worth $3 billion. That day, Upstarts Media was the first to report Databricks was acquiring open source database company Neon for $1 billion. The Databricks-Neon deal was then confirmed last week, as Salesforce almost simultaneously announced plans to acquire Convergence.ai, an agentic AI startup out of London, for undisclosed financial terms. And then yesterday, a veritable blockbuster—OpenAI announced its intention to acquire Apple…

Good morning. As investment in AI accelerates, CEOs expect their CFOs to play central roles in leading the strategy. Finance leaders should treat enterprise AI oversight as a “proof of concept”—carefully assessing potential impacts and investments, tracking outcomes, managing risks, and regularly evaluating whether to continue the initiatives, Marco Steecker, a senior director and analyst at Gartner, explained earlier this week at the firm’s annual CFO conference. I brought up this topic during my conversation with Josh Schwartz, SVP and CFO of Medidata Solutions, a SaaS platform provider for clinical trials in the life sciences. Schwartz recently took over Medidata’s…

As major AI players waver due to valuation and demand concerns, investors are looking for relatively under-the-radar tech stocks for growth potential. IBM has been gaining ground as the company plans new strategies for a turnaround. The stock is up 16% so far this year. Wamsi Mohan, Bank of America Global Research senior IT hardware analyst, said in a recent program on CNBC that he believes International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) has the ability to meet its targets and called the pullback the company faced “transitory.” “They’ve divested a lot of assets that were not growing, they’ve invested in assets…