SpaceXAI releases Grok 4.5, which Elon describes as an 'Opus-class model'

Plus more of TechCrunch's top stories to start your morning

View this email online in your browser  July 09, 2026 TechCrunch Top 3 SpaceXAI releases Grok 4.5, which Elon describes as an 'Opus-class model': Elon Musk's tech company released the newest version of Grok on Wednesday, promising a cheaper, more efficient alternative to other powerful AI models. Read More Anthropic’s new Claude feature is quietly selling you on AI: Claude’s new Reflect dashboard doesn’t just visualize how you use AI. It also subtly reinforces how much of your daily work now depends on Anthropic’s chatbot. Read More Popular open source AI developer tool Ollama raises $65M, grows to nearly 9M users: Benchmark-backed Ollama has amassed 176,000 stars, and nearly 17,000 forks on GitHub by helping developers easily run AI on their PCs. Read More A message from General Compute General Compute is making a $300m bet against GPUs General Compute raised $15m to build the worlds first ASIC cloud. By removing the GPU bottleneck, it runs frontier LLMs up to 16x faster than standard GPU clouds. ASIC silicon is also far more energy efficient, so it deploys in air-cooled data centers, making growth and expansion dramatically easier. Learn more here Morning Must-Reads Despite 'misgivings,' judge approves Elon Musk's $1.5M SEC settlement: The saga of Musk's tussle with the SEC over how he disclosed his growing stake in Twitter (now X) has come to an end. Read More Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX are bigger than the last 25 years of tech exits: Three big AI IPOs are set to generate more value than all the U.S. VC backed exits since 2000. Read More Lovable reportedly in talks to double its valuation to $13.2B: The $300 million round is expected to be led by Menlo Ventures, Sifted reported. Read More Feds demand autonomous vehicle companies stop interfering with first responders: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said emergency scenes are not "edge cases." Read More Character.AI enters the microdrama arena with its own productions, but there's a twist: In an interesting twist that takes advantage of the company's core product, users can chat with these shows' characters, ask them questions, and even roleplay different storylines. Read More Last but Not Least Google's deepfake detector system used to debunk McConnell hoax pic: Earlier this week, a picture seemed to show Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell covered in tubes in a hospital bed in a state of extreme distress. It turned out to be an AI-generated fake. Read More Check out some of our other newsletters: StrictlyVC TechCrunch Events TechCrunch Mobility Want to adjust your daily newsletter schedule? You can do it right here Got a tip? Get in touch securely. Want to advertise on TechCrunch? advertise@techcrunch.com Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Unsubscribe Member Center Privacy Policy Copyright © 2026 TechCrunch Media LLC 501 2nd Street, Suite 650, San Francisco, CA 94107

Meta wants its AI glasses to seem less creepy. Its AI strategy says otherwise.

Plus more of TechCrunch's top stories this afternoon

View this email online in your browser  July 08, 2026 TechCrunch Top 3 Meta wants its AI glasses to seem less creepy. Its AI strategy says otherwise.: Meta is adding a new safeguard to stop people from secretly recording others with its AI glasses. But the update comes as the company continues to expand how much personal data its AI products collect and use. Read More OpenAI releases new voice models for more natural live conversations: OpenAI says its new voice mode can speak and listen at the same time, a key ability for live translation. Read More SpaceXAI releases Grok 4.5, which Elon describes as an 'Opus-class model': Elon Musk's tech company released the newest version of Grok on Wednesday, promising a cheaper, more efficient alternative to other powerful AI models. Read More A message from Ai4 America’s Largest AI Conference Returns to Las Vegas Join 12000+ attendees at Ai4 2026, America’s largest AI conference. Discover the strategic insights and use cases driving real business impact. Hear from industry pioneers like Geoffrey Hinton, Fei-Fei Li, and Andrew Ng, explore 400+ exhibits, & network with peers in Las Vegas, Aug 4-6. Final call to register now and save $600+ before Aug 2. Register Now Afternoon Must-Reads Apple to produce Made in America wireless chips with Broadcom: Apple has signed a $30 billion+ multiyear deal with Broadcom to design and produce more than 15 billion U.S.-made custom wireless connectivity chips for Apple products.  Read More Google's deepfake detector system used to debunk McConnell hoax pic: Earlier this week, a picture seemed to show Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell covered in tubes in a hospital bed in a state of extreme distress. It turned out to be an AI-generated fake. Read More Prime Intellect raises $130M Series A to help enterprises build their own AI agents: Founded in 2024, Prime Intellect’s goal is to give organizations capabilities to train their own agentic systems without relying on frontier AI labs. Read More These AI startups are growing revenue at faster and faster rates: There are a lot of fast-growing AI startups, but some are growing even faster, they say. Read More Google Photos adds a new AI 'Video Remix' tool: The feature can do things like apply cinematic relighting to brighten up a dark clip, swap out a plain background for something fun, or add artistic styles to videos. Read More Last but Not Least Another massive data breach exposed millions of driver's license numbers: The cyberattack targeting a U.S. insurance giant is the largest known breach of driver's license numbers so far in 2026. Read More Check out some of our other newsletters: StrictlyVC TechCrunch Events TechCrunch Mobility Want to adjust your daily newsletter schedule? You can do it right here Got a tip? Get in touch securely. Want to advertise on TechCrunch? advertise@techcrunch.com Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Unsubscribe Member Center Privacy Policy Copyright © 2026 TechCrunch Media LLC 501 2nd Street, Suite 650, San Francisco, CA 94107