Monday, April 28, 2025

Welcome to TC PM! Today we have the details on ChatGPT's new shopping-focused update; we learn of funding rounds at two very different startups; and Temu responds to Trump's tariffs.

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: OpenAI

🛒 Shopping support: OpenAI is updating ChatGPT's web search tool to include new features for folks who turn to the platform for their shopping needs. When users search for a product, ChatGPT will now offer a few recommendations paired with reviews.

🥊 Chip competition: Chinese tech conglomerate Huawei is apparently making strong progress with its latest AI chip, Ascend 910D. This chip is meant to rival Nvidia's advanced AI chips and is being developed as export controls on U.S. chips to China continue to tighten.

🦾 Robot arm time: Hugging Face, best known for its AI developer platform, announced it will release a programmable robotic arm called the SO-101 in October. This 3D-printed arm can perform a few different tasks and will cost $100.

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Afternoon must-reads

Image Credits: Glacier

♻️ Funds for recycling: Glacier, a startup that has developed robotic arms that use computer vision to sort recycling, has raised a $16 million Series A round led by Ecosystem Integrity Fund. The company helps prevent incorrectly recycled items from being turned into trash.

🎪 Side show: Google announced a change to its upcoming annual developer conference, Google I/O, which is scheduled for next month. This year, Google's updates on Android will come at a separate virtual event that will take place before the broader conference.

💡 With the lights out! The widespread power outages in Spain and Portugal today have knocked some of YouTube's customer support team offline. The company wouldn't confirm how much of its team was affected and said it's working to support its teams in the region.

🏡 More money for mortgages: Sprive is a U.K. fintech company looking to help people pay off their mortgages faster. The app helps people overpay for their mortgages through cash-back and automation opportunities. The company just raised $7.3 million.

🏷️ That'll cost ya: Chinese e-commerce platform Temu is responding to Donald Trump's tariffs against goods from China by adding a 145% import charge to orders. This means these import charges will generally cost more than the items users were buying to begin with.

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Around the web

🧠 Change my mind: A group of researchers decided to run a social experiment on Reddit where they deployed bots into the r/changemymind channel to see if AI could persuade people to change their opinions. Once the experiment was disclosed, people obviously weren't happy.

🤖 Figure forges on: Humanoid robotics startup Figure raised eyebrows last week when it threatened legal action against a Fortune article claiming its partnership with BMW was smaller than it made seem. Now the company is nearing talks to work with UPS.