Author: GT

Sarah Murray recalls the first time she saw an artificial model in fashion: It was 2023, and a beautiful young woman of color donned a Levi’s denim overall dress. Murray, a commercial model herself, said it made her feel sad and exhausted.  The iconic denim company had teamed up with the AI studio Lalaland.ai to create “diverse” digital fashion models for more inclusive ads. For an industry that has failed for years to employ diverse human models, the backlash was swift, with New York Magazine calling the decision “artificial diversity.”  “Modeling as a profession is already challenging enough without having…

Startup founders face a perplexing and even contradictory capital market in 2025, according to Sapphire Ventures partner Cathy Gao. “Capital isn’t scarce. But access to that capital is harder than ever,” she said. Gao, who spoke at TechCrunch’s All Stage conference in July, said it’s possible for startup founders, especially those in later Series C stage, to navigate this particular economic environment. And they need to start with a reality check.  To begin, she said, it’s important to note that only one in five startups that raise a Series A ever make it to raise a Series C. And, in…

Anthropic has revoked OpenAI’s access to its Claude family of AI models, according to a report in Wired. Sources told Wired that OpenAI was connecting Claude to internal tools that allowed the company to compare Claude’s performance to its own models in categories like coding, writing, and safety. In a statement provided to TechCrunch, Anthropic spokesperson said, “OpenAI’s own technical staff were also using our coding tools ahead of the launch of GPT-5,” which is apparently “a direct violation of our terms of service.” (Anthropic’s commercial terms forbid companies from using Claude to build competing services.) However, the company also…

A surprising figure is celebrating Figma’s successful IPO: Lina Khan, former chair of the Federal Trade Commission. In a Friday afternoon post on X, Khan linked to an article about Figma’s impressive first day of trading and argued the IPO is “a great reminder that letting startups grow into independently successful businesses, rather than be bought up by existing giants, can generate enormous value.” Khan was alluding to a $20 billion deal for Adobe to acquire Figma that fell through back in 2023. While Adobe cited the lack of a “clear path” to approval from the European Commission and the…

Autonomous weapons, decentralized strategy, and startup speed — this isn’t the future of defense, it’s the now. At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, Ethan Thornton, CEO and founder of Mach Industries, steps onto the AI Stage to talk about how next-gen defense is being built from the ground up with AI at its core. Inside the AI arms race — and the founder aiming to rewrite it Ethan Thornton isn’t your typical defense industry leader. As the CEO and founder of Mach Industries, he launched the company out of MIT in 2023 with a bold mission: to build decentralized, next-generation defense technologies…

Instagram users now need a public account with a minimum of 1,000 followers to go live on the platform, the social network confirmed to TechCrunch. Until now, Instagram has allowed anyone to go live, regardless of their follower count or whether their account is public or private. The move will be a blow to smaller creators on the platform who fall under the 1,000 followers requirement, as well as regular users who just liked to go live with their friends for fun. Users who don’t have public accounts and have fewer than 1,000 followers will see a new notice when…

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI has raised $8.3 billion at a $300 billion valuation, reports The New York Times. The deal is part of OpenAI’s broader strategy to secure $40 billion this year.  The oversubscribed round came months ahead of schedule, per the NYT. OpenAI initially raised $2.5 billion from VC firms in March when it announced its intention to raise $40 billion in a round spearheaded by SoftBank. The AI giant had planned to take on an additional $7.5 billion by the end of the year, but beat itself to the punch as investors clamber to get onto its cap table amid…

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, taking place October 27-29 at Moscone West in San Francisco, we’re getting real about what it takes to land a Series A in today’s market — no smoke, no mirrors, just the unfiltered perspective from the people signing the checks. Series A has changed — here’s how to win in 2026 This Builder Stage session brings together three power players in early-stage investing: Katie Stanton (Moxxie Ventures), Thomas Krane (Insight Partners), and Sangeen Zeb (GV). They’ve seen thousands of decks, led major rounds, and helped steer startups from scrappy beginnings to breakout scale. This conversation goes…

Truecaller is discontinuing its call-recording function on iOS — just over two years after the feature was launched — as the Swedish company opts to focus on its core offering: fighting spam calls. On Friday, the company confirmed to TechCrunch that its call-recording feature will no longer be available on iPhones starting September 30. Users with saved call recordings can either download them to their devices, share them via email or messaging apps, or switch their storage preference to iCloud to keep the recordings accessible even after the feature is discontinued. Truecaller’s head of iOS, Nakul Kabra, told TechCrunch the…

Lovense, a maker of internet-connected sex toys, has confirmed it has fixed a pair of security vulnerabilities that exposed users’ private email addresses and allowed attackers to remotely take over any user’s account. While the company said the bugs were “fully resolved,” its chief executive is now considering taking legal action following the disclosure. In a statement shared with TechCrunch, Lovense CEO Dan Liu said the sex toy maker was “investigating the possibility of legal action” in response to allegedly erroneous reports about the bug. When asked by TechCrunch, the company did not respond to clarify whether it was referring…