Google rolls out Gemini 3.5 Flash, its “strongest agentic and coding model yet”, for tackling long-horizon agentic tasks, in the Gemini app and Search's AI Mode
Gemini 3.5 is built to help you execute complex, agentic workflows. — Today, we're introducing Gemini 3.5 …
Google overhauls its search box, letting users input longer queries, including with photos and videos, and automate searches with Gemini 3.5 Flash-based agents
Powered by a new Gemini A.I. model, the tech giant is overhauling its search box to answer longer queries, introducing a video-generation …
Google announces Gemini Spark, a “24/7 personal AI agent” powered by Gemini 3.5 that integrates with Google Workspace apps, including Gmail, Docs, and Slides
The AI agent is rolling out to testers this week. — Google has announced a “24/7 personal AI agent” …
Google launches Gemini Omni, a multimodal model it says can “create anything from any input”, starting with video generation, for Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra
Although it was already discovered by intrepid AI power users weeks ahead of the official unveiling today at Google's annual …
Q&A with Google SVP James Manyika on AI's ability to automate tasks versus occupations, his optimism about the labor market despite AI-driven layoffs, and more
Tasks are getting easier to automate — jobs aren't. What now? — Some fun news: we're doing our first-ever Platformer live event …
Andrej Karpathy joins Anthropic to help launch a team focused on using Claude to accelerate pretraining research; he helped found OpenAI and worked at Tesla
Andrej Karpathy, one of the best-known AI researchers in the world and a founding member of OpenAI, announced Tuesday that he's joining rival AI lab Anthropic.
Google adds a $100/month AI Ultra plan aimed at developers, tech workers, and creative pros, and cuts its top Ultra subscription from $250/month to $200/month
ZDNET's key takeaways — Google has introduced a cheaper AI Ultra plan at $100 a month. — The full Ultra Plan is now $50 cheaper at $200 a month.
Granta and the Commonwealth Foundation say they can't determine yet if AI was used to write a prize-winning short story after critics pointed to signs of AI use
Granta publisher says ‘perhaps we never will know’ true authorship of work that won Commonwealth prize
Google introduces Antigravity 2.0, featuring an updated desktop app that lets users orchestrate agents, an Antigravity CLI tool, and an SDK for custom workflows
Google is introducing a new version of its agentic coding app, Google Antigravity 2.0, with an updated desktop app, a CLI tool, and an SDK for custom workflows.
Hands-on with Google and Samsung's Android XR smart glasses, with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster frames, and with Xreal's Project Aura, all coming this fall
Here's your first look at smart glasses coming from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster, powered by Google and Samsung's XR platform.
Threat actors published 600+ malicious versions to npm as part of the Shai-Hulud supply chain campaign; most of the affected packages are in the @antv ecosystem
Threat actors earlier today published more than 600 malicious packages to the Node Package Manager (npm) index as part of a new Shai-Hulud supply-chain campaign.
The Take It Down Act, a US law forcing social networks to remove nonconsensual intimate images within 48 hours of reporting or face fines, took effect on May 19
The Take It Down Act is in full force, but it could be a gift to government censors — not victims of image-based sexual abuse.
GitHub says it's investigating “unauthorized access” to its internal repositories, and there's no proof of customer data outside its repositories being impacted
We are investigating unauthorized access to GitHub's internal repositories. While we currently have no evidence of impact to customer information stored outside of GitHub's internal repositories (such...
GitHub confirms ~3,800 internal repositories were breached after one of its employees installed a malicious VS Code extension; TeamPCP claims responsibility
GitHub has confirmed that roughly 3,800 internal repositories were breached after one of its employees installed a malicious VS Code extension.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signs the US' first law banning prediction market sites from operating in the state; the CFTC sues Minnesota to try to block the law
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has signed the nation's first law banning prediction market sites from operating in the state …
Meta begins laying off 8,000 employees, or 10% of its staff, in a push to become an AI-first company; another 7,000 workers will be reassigned to AI initiatives
Meta told employees last month that it would carry out mass layoffs on May 20, as the Silicon Valley giant tries to transform into an A.I.-first company.
OpenAI says an internal general-purpose reasoning model has disproved the Erdős unit distance conjecture, a central problem in discrete geometry posed in 1946
Read the proof(opens in a new window)Read the companion remarks(opens in a new window) — Loading...
Kickstarter retracts its stricter rules on mature content after creator backlash, and says it adopted the tougher rules because of its payment processor Stripe
It explained that it created the new rules due to Stripe's policy. — Kickstarter has retracted the new set of rules around mature content …
Discord says voice and video calls outside of stage channels are now end-to-end encrypted by default, after launching its encryption protocol in September 2024
“Likely one of the internet's most platform-diverse E2EE voice and video implementations.”
Sources: OpenAI is preparing to file confidentially for an IPO as early as Friday; the company plans to be ready to go public as early as September
The artificial-intelligence giant is working with bankers at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley — ChatGPT-maker OpenAI has been working …
Trump signs an EO calling on regulators and the Fed to review policies that could support fintech growth, including expanding fintech access to payment accounts
U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday calling on regulators and the Federal Reserve to review rules …
Apple says the App Store prevented over $2.2B in potentially fraudulent transactions in 2025, rejected over 2M problematic app submissions, and more
Ahead of Apple's annual developer conference next month, Apple has shared an update on how the App Store serves users and developers alike with numerous protections.
Nvidia reports Q1 revenue up 85% YoY to $81.6B, Data Center revenue up 92% to $75.2B, and announces an $80B additional share repurchase authorization
- Record revenue of $81.6 billion, up 85% from a year ago — Record Data Center revenue of $75.2 billion, up 92% from a year ago
Samsung Electronics and its South Korean labor union reach a preliminary pay deal; the union says it has suspended a general strike and put the deal to a vote
Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and its South Korean labour union reached a preliminary pay deal on Wednesday …
OpenAI introduces Guaranteed Capacity, which lets customers get discounted access to OpenAI's compute using one- to three-year commitments based on spend levels
Guarantee long-term access to OpenAI compute for the products, agents, and customer workflows that matter most. — Plan for capacity Contact sales
Airbnb says it is adding luggage storage, airport pickups, car rentals, grocery delivery, and thousands of boutique and independent hotels to its platform
Platform ramps up hotel-booking options, car rentals and AI-enabled features, expecting World Cup to drive record use
Sources: an attack exploiting a previously unknown vulnerability in Huawei router software caused a three-hour nationwide telecoms outage in Luxembourg in 2025
An attack exploiting a previously unknown vulnerability in Huawei enterprise router software caused a nationwide telecoms outage …
Google debuts Gemini for Science, a set of experimental tools that help researchers generate hypotheses, conduct testing, and understand scientific literature
2026-05-18 Andrew D White, Michael Skarlinski, Ludovico Mitchener, Siddharth M. Narayanan, Tyler NadolskiKatie Collins /CNET:Searching for Cancer Cures Is Part of Google's AI Story. It Deserves to Be ...
Cloud provider Railway says Google Cloud suspended its account without cause, resulting in an outage; in 2024, GCP deleted an Australian pension fund's account
PaaS platform Railway says Google temporarily suspended its account on Wednesday without cause, inducing a major outage.
Internal memo: Xbox hires game industry analyst Matthew Ball as chief strategy officer, and names Scott Van Vliet, who led Azure AI infrastructure, as Xbox CTO
The second major Xbox leadership changes this month. … Microsoft has recruited game industry analyst Matthew Ball as Xbox chief strategy officer.
Two research papers describe how Google's Co-Scientist and nonprofit FutureHouse's AI tools can succeed at drug retargeting by developing and testing hypotheses
Both tools generate hypotheses; one goes on to analyze some of the data. — On Tuesday, Nature released two papers describing AI systems intended …
SpaceX files publicly for its IPO, choosing Nasdaq to make its debut under the symbol SPCX
SpaceX filed publicly for its initial public offering, moving Elon Musk's rocket, satellite and artificial intelligence company a step closer to delivering the world's biggest-ever debut.
Google says the Gemini app has 900M+ MAUs across 230 countries, up from 400M at I/O 2025, and launches Neural Expressive, a new design language for Gemini
Satya said he wanted to make Google dance when it came to AI and the Gemini team definitely busted a move. — An incredible comeback story from a company many of us wrote off. …
Sundar Pichai says Google is now processing 3.2 quadrillion tokens per month, up from 480T tokens per month a year ago and 9.7T tokens per month two years ago
and Doesn't Need You AnymoreCharles Rollet /Business Insider:Sundar Pichai announced at Google I/O that Gemini 3.5 Pro will launch next month; attendees groaned at the model coming out later than they...
Sources: SpaceX expects to proceed with its acquisition of Cursor 30 days after its public trading debut, which is expected to occur on June 12
SpaceX expects to proceed with its acquisition of artificial intelligence coding startup Cursor 30 days after Elon Musk's company begins trading publicly …
Google unveils conversational features for Gmail, Docs, and Keep, letting users ask natural language questions, rolling out to AI Pro and Ultra subs this summer
all with your voice. Just speak what's on your mind, and let Gemini do the rest. These new conversational features in @Gmail, @GoogleDocs and Keep are rolling [image]Max Weinbach /@mweinbach:Docs Live...
Plex says the price for the Lifetime tier of its Plex Pass plan will increase from $249.99 to $749.99 in July
Google updates Flow and Flow Music with Gemini Omni Flash support, mobile apps, the ability to create custom tools like a video resizer or shaders, and more
Google Flow's family of products gets agentic updates, mobile apps and the Omni Flash treatment.
Google adds a conversational search feature to YouTube, initially for Premium users, and integrates Gemini Omni into YouTube Shorts Remix and the Create app
Seriously, who is asking for all these tools? … What you need to know — Ask YouTube now supports conversational searches instead of relying only on simple keywords.
An analysis based on OpenAI's and Anthropic's current valuations suggests ~$370B of philanthropic assets tied to the two AI companies could soon become liquid
AI is about to generate hundreds of billions in new philanthropic funding. We have a huge amount of work to do to make the most of it.
Three precedent-setting court rulings in China have said that employers replacing workers with AI is voluntary cost-cutting that does not justify mass layoffs
A series of precedent-setting rulings signals that Chinese courts are being enlisted to shield workers from displacement by artificial intelligence.LinkedIn:Drasko Draskovic, PhDLinkedIn:Drasko Drasko...
In disclosures to investors, Anthropic says it expects to generate $10.9B in revenue in Q2, vs. $4.8B in Q1, and turn a $559M operating profit, its first ever
The startup expects a 130% revenue surge to $10.9 billion in the June quarter and its first operating profit, defying skeptics of the AI boom
Gemini 3.5 Flash costs $1.50 per 1M input tokens and $9 per 1M output tokens, 3x the price of Gemini 3 Flash Preview and 6x the price of Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite
Today at Google I/O, Google released Gemini 3.5 Flash. This one skipped the -preview modifier and went straight to general availability …
Samsung Electronics rejects a labor union-accepted mediation proposal, raising the prospect of a workers' strike; a general work stoppage will proceed on May 21
Google unveils Pics, an AI image editor in Workspace that lets users edit specific elements and modify text, rolling out this summer to AI Pro and Ultra users
Mat Smith /Engadget:
OpenAI adds support for Google's SynthID watermarks in AI images, and previews a public portal that lets users verify if an image was generated by its models
helping give everyone more helpful context [image]@openai:We're adding new ways for people to identify AI-generated images and understand where they came from. In addition to C2PA Content Credentials,...
Stability AI releases a new family of audio models called Stable Audio 3.0 that is trained on licensed data; the top model can generate six-minute songs
Stability AI, the company behind Stable Diffusion, is releasing a new family of audio models, called Stability Audio 3.0.
Sources: Apple Chief Hardware Officer Johny Srouji is reorganizing hardware development to integrate silicon teams with product creation and speed up their work
Google adds Street View integration to Project Genie, its interactive world builder, and expands Genie from the US to adult Google AI Ultra subscribers globally
Genie can simulate worlds based on real locations, and you can try it too!! Check out the blog for more infoJustine Moore /@venturetwins:I got to “play” a world model in real life. The @GoogleDeepMind...
Internal memo: Intuit is laying off ~17% of its workforce, or ~3,000 employees worldwide, to streamline operations and sharpen its focus on key bets, like AI
Intuit (INTU.O) is laying off about 17% of its workforce, or about 3,000 employees worldwide, to streamline operations and sharpen focus …
Google unveils Universal Cart, a shopping assistant that works “across merchants”, built on its open-standard Universal Commerce Protocol, rolling out in the US
and Into a Race It Hasn't Won YetAlina Maria Stan /The Next Web:Google wants to own your entire shopping journey with Universal Cart and agent-led paymentsGoogle on YouTube:A recording of the Google I...
NanoClaw creator NanoCo raised a $12M seed led by Valley Capital and says it is booking enterprise customers; co-founders say they rejected a $20M buyout offer
NanoCo, the company behind security-focused OpenClaw alternative NanoClaw, has raised an oversubscribed $12 million seed round following …
Internal memo: Mark Zuckerberg told employees that he does not expect more company-wide layoffs this year
Katie Paul /Reuters:
Ubisoft reports a record operating loss of $1.40B for the year to March and says sales in 2026-27 will fall by about 8% to 9%; UBI falls 6%+
French videogame publisher Ubisoft warned on Wednesday of another year of losses and lower sales after a record annual operating loss, deepening pressure on the company as it restructures.
Google says it is testing new ad formats in search results and AI Mode, including Conversational Discovery ads, Highlighted Answers, and AI-powered Shopping ads
Google is introducing a new generation of Gemini-powered ad formats across AI Mode and Search designed to make ads feel more conversational …
SkyeChip becomes the first Malaysian chip design company to IPO on the Bursa Malaysia exchange, surging 300%+; the company was valued at ~$397M at its IPO price
Exa, which offers a search engine that is designed for AI agents, raised $250M led by a16z at a $2.2B valuation, up from $700M in September 2025
Exa Labs Inc., a San Francisco-based startup that wants to build a search engine tailor-made for the age of artificial intelligence …
Google unveils Continue On, a new feature in Android 17 that will let users move tasks between Android devices, similar to Apple's Handoff feature
Ben Schoon /9to5Google:
Circle cofounder Sean Neville's Catena Labs, which lets users set financial guardrails for AI agents, raised a $30M Series A and applies for a US bank charter
Sean Neville, who cofounded the stablecoin giant Circle, has raised another stash of capital from top-flight venture capitalists.
Boston-based CircuitHub, which manufactures circuit boards based on customers' requirements, raised a $28M Series A led by Plural
An interview with Match Group CEO Spencer Rascoff about plans for Tinder, including a redesign, AI features, live events, and group dating to win over Gen Z
The dating app's turnaround bets on live events, group dating and an AI-heavy redesign. — At a pickleball venue near Santa Monica State beach …
S. “Soma” Somasegar, who led Microsoft's Developer Division for 12 years as part of his 27-year tenure at the company before leaving in 2015, has died at age 59
Variational, which has built a protocol for decentralized derivatives trading aimed at gathering liquidity from traditional markets, raised a $50M Series A
The crypto industry has long defined itself in opposition to traditional finance but, in recent years, the two worlds are on a path to convergence.
Sources: Google DeepMind has reached a ~$100M deal to hire 20+ researchers from Contextual AI, including CEO Douwe Kiela, and license its technology
Google's web-based AI Studio now lets users build native Android apps; Google says the apps are for personal use only for now and publishing is on the roadmap
Sarah Perez /TechCrunch:
SpaceX S-1: Anthropic is paying SpaceX $1.25B/mo. until May 2029 under their compute deal; Anthropic says it's expanding the deal to include Colossus 2 capacity
Ina Fried /Axios:NEW
Alibaba's chipmaking unit T-Head unveils the Zhenwu M890 for AI training and inference, saying it is well-suited for agentic tasks, and plans annual upgrades
Singapore announces a National AI Partnership with Google and an MoU with OpenAI, which will set up an AI lab and commit $234M+ to the city-state's AI ecosystem
Sam Altman says OpenAI offered to invest $2M in tokens in each startup in the current YC batch; a source says the offer is in exchange for equity via a SAFE
Sources: Nvidia's business development group, not its VC arm NVentures, has led much of its ~$90B dealmaking push across 145+ companies over the past 16 months
OpenAI's Chris Lehane says he is pursuing “reverse federalism”, lobbying blue states to pass AI safety laws and create a de facto US standard, as DC dithers
OpenAI's effort comes after nearly a year in which the tech lobby has pressured Congress to block states from passing AI laws …
On-demand manufacturing startup SendCutSend raised $110M co-led by Sequoia, Paradigm, and Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison, valuing it at $1B
London-based Primer, which helps e-commerce merchants connect and manage multiple payment providers, raised a $100M Series C led by Sofina
Mercury, which provides banking services to startups, raised a $200M Series D led by TCV at a $5.2B valuation, up from $3.5B in March 2025
Mercury, a fintech firm that provides banking services to startups, has raised $200 million in funding at a $5.2 billion valuation, CNBC has learned exclusively.
Filing: SpaceX reports 2025 revenue of $18.7B, up 33% YoY, a $4.9B loss, vs. a $791M profit in 2024, and $20.7B in capital expenditures, up from $11.2B
New York Times:
Vietnam introduces Decree 142 to implement its AI law, requiring that companies classify AI models by risk level, label deepfakes, and more
Nvidia reports Q1 net income up 211% YoY to $58.3B, beating analyst estimates of $42.9B, and raises Q2 revenue forecast to $91B
Robbie Whelan /Wall Street Journal:
Sources detail growing concerns inside SoftBank over Masayoshi Son's $60B+ bet on OpenAI, which some fear concentrates too much capital into a single company
Socket, which helps companies safeguard open-source code against hackers, raised $60M led by Thrive Capital at a $1B valuation
Socket, a cybersecurity startup that sells technology to help safeguard open-source code against hackers, has raised a new round of funding that values the company at $1 billion.