"We are a very different company to Palantir,” says “discreet” French replacement

The managing director of the little-known French startup thrown into the spotlight when it was chosen by France’s domestic intelligence services to replace controversial US data analytics giant Palant…

Sigvi raises €1.2M to expand automated car rental operations

Sigvi, anAI-powered revenue platform for the car rental industry, has raised €1.2million in pre-seed funding to accelerate product development and internationalexpansion. The round was led by Superher…

The US just banned ‘foreign’ robots and inverters, and it means China
The US just banned ‘foreign’ robots and inverters, and it means China

The United States has moved to block new imports of foreign-made robots and power inverters. Officials fear a hostile power could spy through them, or switch them off from afar. The order never says China. It does not need to. The Federal Communication…

Eight months ago Altman wanted an AI CEO. Now he says nobody does.
Eight months ago Altman wanted an AI CEO. Now he says nobody does.

In November, Sam Altman wanted OpenAI to be the first big company run by an AI boss. He said it would be an embarrassment if it were not. This week, he said people do not want an AI boss at all. “Shame on me if OpenAI is not the first big company run b…

1,134 AI insiders just asked Washington for a way to slow AI down
1,134 AI insiders just asked Washington for a way to slow AI down

More than a thousand of the people building the most powerful AI want a way to slow it down. On Tuesday, 1,134 employees of the leading AI companies signed a letter asking the US government to help build one. The statement is titled Pacing the Frontier…

The AI that took their jobs is now renting their faces, for $15
The AI that took their jobs is now renting their faces, for $15

In China, the AI boom that put actors and models out of work has found a new use for them. It is renting their faces. A growing set of platforms now pays people $15 to $700 to license their likeness for AI-generated content, Rest of World reported. Pro…

Cursor cut its India price to $7, and its own AI models are why
Cursor cut its India price to $7, and its own AI models are why

Cursor has cut the price of AI coding in India to about $7 a month. The interesting part is how it can afford to. The startup launched Cursor Start on Monday, a ₹649 plan sold only in India, TechCrunch reported. It sits well below the $20 Pro subscript…

China’s free AI models may not stay free, Goldman says
China’s free AI models may not stay free, Goldman says

For a year, the story of Chinese AI has been simple. It is nearly as good as the American frontier, and it is effectively free. That second part may be about to change. Chinese developers could start charging cloud platforms commercial licensing fees t…

Google scraped the web to build itself. A court just said others can scrape Google.
Google scraped the web to build itself. A court just said others can scrape Google.

Google built one of the world’s largest companies by scraping the entire web without asking permission first. This week a court told Google it cannot stop others from scraping Google. On 20 July, a federal judge dismissed Google’s lawsuit against SerpA…

The man who coined ‘agentic AI’ is betting it won’t take your job
The man who coined ‘agentic AI’ is betting it won’t take your job

Andrew Ng helped give the AI industry its vocabulary, from “AI is the new electricity” to “agentic AI.” His new company bets against the phrase everyone else is using: that AI will take your job. Ng has founded LearnVector, an AI-native learning startu…