AI
Jul 17, 2026
Google Vids Adds AI Avatars and Gemini Video Generation
Google is expanding its Vids platform with AI avatars that let users star in their own videos as a digital version of themselves. The update also brings Gemini Omni-powered tools for generating and editing video from text prompts and reference images.
AI
Generative AI
Jul 17, 2026
Roblox Brings AI Game Creation to Mobile With 'Build'
Roblox has launched a new AI-powered 'Build' feature inside its mobile app that lets users generate basic games from a single text prompt. The move lowers the barrier to game creation dramatically, putting simple development tools in the hands of its massive mobile-first audience. Here's what it means for the platform and the broader AI-assisted creation space.
AI
Gaming
Product Launch
Jul 17, 2026
AI Travel Agency Fora Hits Unicorn With $60M Series D
Fora has closed a $60 million Series D round led by Forerunner and Tactile Ventures, pushing the AI-powered travel agency to a $1 billion valuation. The milestone signals growing investor confidence in AI-native approaches to the travel booking market.
AI
Startups
Venture Capital
Jul 17, 2026
Founders Fund Adds Ex-OpenAI Exec Ryan Beiermeister
Ryan Beiermeister, a former OpenAI executive, has joined Founders Fund as a partner. She previously appeared in the firm's YouTube series 'Mafia,' where she drew attention for her sharp analytical thinking — though that's not what landed her the role.
Venture Capital
AI
Startups
Jul 17, 2026
Kimi K3: Moonshot AI's Largest-Ever Open-Source Model
Beijing-based Moonshot AI has released Kimi K3, a 2.8-trillion-parameter open-source model that benchmarks place within striking distance of GPT-5 and Claude. The release marks a dramatic comeback for a company that had lost significant ground to DeepSeek — and signals that the gap between open-source and proprietary AI may have effectively closed.
AI
Open Source
LLMs
Jul 16, 2026
Google's AI Mode Gains App Integration for Actions
Google is expanding AI Mode in Search to support direct integration with third-party apps, letting users take action — not just get answers. The update signals a broader push to make AI Mode a task-completion layer across the tools people use every day.
AI
Product
Jul 16, 2026
NotebookLM Is Now Gemini Notebook, Google Rebrands
Google has renamed NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook, folding one of its most beloved AI products deeper into the Gemini brand family. The move also signals tighter integration with Google Search's AI Mode, reshaping how users will access their notebooks going forward.
AI
Product News
Jul 16, 2026
OpenAI Is Selling a ChatGPT-Branded Basketball
OpenAI made waves with its first hardware release this week, but the company is also quietly selling a ChatGPT-branded basketball. It's a small move with bigger implications for how AI companies are thinking about brand building beyond software.
AI
OpenAI
Startups
Jul 16, 2026
DoorDash Launches a Command-Line Ordering Tool for AI
DoorDash is opening a limited beta of dd-cli, a command-line interface that lets developers and AI agents search restaurants, build carts, and place orders directly from the terminal. It's a deliberate signal that the company is designing infrastructure for machine consumers, not just human ones.
AI
Developer Tools
Startups
Jul 16, 2026
Ex-DeepMind Researcher Secures $300M Pre-Seed Valuation
Andrew Dai, whose research helped shape the foundations of ChatGPT, has raised at a $300M pre-seed valuation for a visual AI venture — without launching a product. The raise signals just how much weight pedigree and thesis carry in today's AI funding climate.
AI
Venture Capital
Startups
Jul 16, 2026
EQT's €5bn Fund in Talks to Lead Mistral's Series D
Swedish investment giant EQT is in advanced discussions to lead or co-lead a new funding round for French AI startup Mistral through its Scaleup Europe Fund. The deal would value Mistral at roughly €10bn, continuing its rapid ascent as Europe's most prominent large language model company.
AI
Venture Capital
Enterprise AI
Jul 16, 2026
Kimi K3 May Be China's Most Powerful Open AI Model
Moonshot AI's upcoming Kimi K3 is reportedly set to become the largest open AI model ever released from China, with a parameter count between 2 trillion and 3 trillion. The model is expected to close the performance gap with Anthropic's Opus 4.8, signaling a significant escalation in the global race for frontier open-weight AI.
AI
Open Source AI
Startups
Jul 16, 2026
xAI Sues User Over Alleged Grok-Made CSAM Deepfakes
Elon Musk's xAI has filed a civil lawsuit against a South Carolina man accused of using the Grok chatbot to generate and distribute child sexual abuse material. The case highlights growing legal and reputational pressure on AI companies to enforce their own safety guardrails — and to pursue users who deliberately bypass them.
AI
Safety
Legal
Jul 16, 2026
Meta's NameTag: What Meta Says vs. What the Code Says
Meta insists its NameTag face-recognition feature for Ray-Ban smart glasses 'doesn't exist' — but WIRED found functional code for it deployed to tens of millions of phones, and Meta's own CTO described it in detail on a podcast. Here's what's actually going on.
AI
Privacy
Meta
Jul 16, 2026
EU Orders Google to Open Android, Search to AI Rivals
The European Commission has ruled that Google must give rival AI assistants and search engines greater access to Android and Google Search under the Digital Markets Act. Google faces a hard deadline of January 2027 for search data sharing and July 2027 for Android changes — decisions that could reshape competition in both mobile and AI.
AI
Regulation
Jul 16, 2026
OpenAI's First Hardware Is a Macro Pad for Codex
OpenAI has launched its first physical hardware product: a limited-edition macro pad called Codex Micro, built in collaboration with keyboard maker Work Louder. Designed for developers using OpenAI's Codex coding platform, the device lets users monitor and manage AI agents directly from a block of programmable buttons.
AI
Developer Tools
OpenAI
Jul 16, 2026
1Password Lets Claude Use Credentials Without Exposure
1Password has launched a browser integration that lets Anthropic's Claude complete multi-step tasks using your stored credentials — without ever exposing passwords to the underlying AI model. A new zero-exposure security framework handles the injection at the browser level, keeping sensitive data out of Claude's context window.
AI
Security
Anthropic
Jul 16, 2026
Hacked Code Suggests Suno Scraped YouTube for AI
A breach of Suno's internal systems has exposed source code that allegedly reveals the AI music startup scraped YouTube for training data. The findings raise serious questions about copyright compliance and data sourcing practices across the generative audio space.
AI
Music
Startups
Jul 16, 2026
Uber Acquires Delivery Hero in a €13B Deal
Uber has agreed to acquire Berlin-based Delivery Hero for €13 billion, combining their platforms across 99 countries. The deal extends Uber's reach into fast-growing delivery markets across Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East — and includes a €2 billion investment commitment in Germany through 2031.
Mergers And Acquisitions
Food Delivery
Startups
Jul 16, 2026
GPT-Red: OpenAI's In-House Model to Hack Its Own AI
OpenAI has unveiled GPT-Red, a large language model built to automatically red-team its AI systems at scale. The tool acts as an adversarial sparring partner, probing for weaknesses that human testers might miss — and it could redefine how the industry approaches AI safety evaluation.
AI
OpenAI
AI Safety