Tuesday, November 5, 2024

Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning, we've got notes of caution from AI safety advocates, the Apple + ChatGPT integration you've been waiting for, and a French health startup that really should launch in the U.S. We've also got another $1 billion on offer for AI startups, moves to embrace AR, the downward trend of agtech, Amazon starting drone deliveries in Arizona, and more. Let's go! — Rebecca

TechCrunch Top 3

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1. "Move cautiously and red-team things" doesn't quite have the same ring to it as "move fast and break things." Nonetheless, that's what AI safety advocates are urging founders to do to avoid ethical issues in the long run. Hell, just look at what social media has done to all of us. Read More

2. Completing the circle: Apple products will get ChatGPT integration in December when iOS 18.2 rolls out, which should make Siri much better than it is today. Users will also get the option of upgrading to ChatGPT Plus inside the Settings app, but no one knows how the companies are sharing any revenue from purchases. Read More

3. AI hedging: Coatue Management earned itself a name for investing heavily in tech startups during the pandemic. Now it's raising $1 billion to back AI-focused companies. Quick, everybody add "AI" to the end of your startup's name! Read More

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Morning must-reads

Image Credits: Romain Dillet / TechCrunch

🏥 Super-size me: French health insurance startup Alan wants to build a super app for all things related to healthcare, and it's now launching an AI chatbot that's vetted by doctors, in addition to a shop and a step-counting feature. The bot will live within Alan's chat interface that lets users ask questions to doctors and get an answer within 15 minutes. Read More

🤖 I hope AI can do my laundry and dishes one day: Caitlin Kalinowski, the former head of Meta's AR glasses efforts, is joining OpenAI to lead robotics and consumer hardware as the AI company works to bring "AI into the physical world and unlock its benefits for humanity." Read More

🌱 Agtech's trending down: Bowery Farming, an agtech unicorn, is shutting down. The New York-based startup built vertical farms that could produce crops – a category that's proven to be tough. AeroFarms and AppHarvest also filed for bankruptcy last year. Read More

☁️ Watching the clouds: Observability, or the process of collecting and understanding data and systems, is proving to be a very expensive endeavor. But the cloud is here to stay, so companies need to find a way to bring down those costs. Enter Dash0, which wants to improve pricing transparency. Read More

🛬 Prime Air: Amazon has begun making drone deliveries to certain customers in Phoenix. Products must weigh 5 pounds or less, and customers can choose the delivery location before checkout. Read More

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Around the web

🚗 Schedule now, ride later: Robotaxi startup Waymo appears to be working on offering scheduled rides, per tech investigator Jane Manchun Wong. It'll need to grow its fleet to make that work, so be on the lookout for more Waymos. Read More

🧑‍⚖️ Netflix under the lens: Investigators searched the offices of Netflix in France and the Netherlands as part of a preliminary investigation into tax fraud laundering, reports Reuters. Read More

👓 Apple looks into smart glasses: Apple is exploring how feasible it would be to make smart glasses by doing an internal study of products on the market, reports Bloomberg. Apple is probably the only company that could really go up against Meta in this category, since it already owns popular hardware and operating systems. Read More

Before you go

Image Credits: Nikolas Kokovlis / NurPhoto / Getty Images

🇨🇭 India cracks down on Wikipedia: Is Wikipedia truly a non-biased and neutral encyclopedia? Or should it be classified as a publisher? That's the question the Indian government is asking as it cites concerns about concentrated editorial control and complaints about bias at the encyclopedia. Read More