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Is Big Tech's AI slowdown a safety pact or a cartel?
After Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a widely-discussed essay calling for a coordinated slowdown of AI development, OpenAI's Sam Altman, Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis, and Elon Musk loosely agreed to 'pace the frontier.' Skeptics are questioning whether the move is genuinely safety-motivated or serves as a form of cartel behavior to protect incumbents. The debate has sparked a wave of statements from AI leaders and politicians on both sides of the issue.
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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang tells Trump 'we're not going to let an AI slowdown happen'
At the All-In Summit, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang took a live speakerphone call from President Trump onstage, during which Huang made clear he opposes slowing AI development — a stance at odds with Elon Musk and Sam Altman, who have expressed support for Dario Amodei's calls to pace the frontier. The high-profile moment also drew attention to the device Huang used to take the call. Trump used the call to deliver remarks to the crowd.
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Microsoft publishes 'Humanist AI Code of Conduct' amid growing safety concerns
Microsoft has released a 37-page Humanist AI Code of Conduct, opening a six-week public consultation period on operational constraints for AI model training and deployment. The document sets out principles such as supporting humans rather than replacing them and includes specific safety constraints against actions like hacking systems or deceiving users. It builds on Microsoft AI's humanist superintelligence framework announced last November.
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OpenAI buys smartphone camera maker Glass Imaging for $300 million
OpenAI has reportedly acquired Glass Imaging, a smartphone camera technology company, for approximately $300 million. Glass Imaging was founded by former Apple engineers who previously led development of Apple's Portrait Mode camera feature. The acquisition signals OpenAI's expanding ambitions beyond software into hardware-adjacent imaging technology.
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Superhuman acquires YC-backed meeting notetaker Fathom
Email productivity platform Superhuman has acquired Fathom, a Y Combinator-backed AI meeting notetaker with over 400,000 monthly active users and more than one million total meeting recordings. The acquisition reflects a broader push by productivity platforms to integrate agentic AI capabilities. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
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TechCrunch Disrupt 2026: What happens when OpenAI ships your roadmap?
TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 will feature an interactive session exploring how AI startups can maintain a competitive edge as foundation models rapidly evolve and absorb features previously unique to independent products. The session is aimed at founders navigating the challenge of building durable value in the shadow of OpenAI and other frontier labs. The conference exhibit table application deadline is September 18.
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Why Most Enterprise Agent Pilots Never Reach Deployment
Deloitte's 2026 technology trends research finds that 89% of enterprise AI agent pilots fail to reach production, while a Teradata survey shows 78% of enterprises have at least one pilot running but only 14% have scaled to organisation-wide use. The gap is not primarily a model quality problem, but rather one of integration, governance, and organisational readiness. The data reveals a significant disconnect between AI adoption enthusiasm and actual deployment success.
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From Video to Data: How AI Is Transforming Multimedia Content Processing
AI systems are increasingly capable of extracting structured data from video content, including transcribing speech, recognizing faces, and analyzing audio layers simultaneously. This transformation is enabling new use cases in media, surveillance, education, and content moderation. The piece explores the technical and business implications of treating video as a rich, queryable data source.
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With iOS 27, I'm actually using Siri again
Apple's long-awaited Siri overhaul has arrived with iOS 27, significantly improving the assistant's usefulness in day-to-day tasks. The update also enables new third-party integrations, such as the fashion discovery app Daydream, which uses Apple Intelligence to let users shop outfits from their camera roll via Siri. The revamped Siri is being seen as a meaningful step forward for Apple's AI ambitions.
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How Vox Group's AI-Powered Technology Is Solving Real-Time Translation for Group Travel
Vox Group, a 25-year-old guiding technology company operating in over 150 countries, has rebuilt its AI-powered platform Aura to deliver real-time translation for mixed-language tour groups. The system addresses one of travel's longstanding challenges: a single guide communicating effectively with audiences speaking different languages simultaneously. The upgraded Aura platform represents a significant leap in practical, field-deployed AI translation.
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A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya is a startup from a former Spotify leader for making music apps
A former Spotify executive has launched a new company releasing experimental music 'singles' — small, standalone apps that involve users creatively in the music-making process. The startup operates out of a vinyl bar in Shibuya, Tokyo, blending physical music culture with digital experimentation. The venture reflects a growing interest in participatory and AI-assisted music creation.
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