Patronus AI lands $50M to build ‘digital worlds’ that stress-test AI agents

Agent-testing startup Patronus AI, founded by former Meta AI researchers, is experiencing nearly insatiable demand, its investor says.

The White House is asking OpenAI to slow roll the release of its new model over safety concerns

OpenAI reportedly plans to share its newest model, GPT 5.6, with a select group of partners instead of with the broader public. The reason: the Trump administration told it to.

YouTube Shorts are getting even shorter with an update that lets you double the playback speed

YouTube Shorts is getting a makeover.

Robotaxis drive miles just to get cleaned and charged; this new startup wants to fix that

Aseon Labs, which came out of Y Combinator’s 2026 spring cohort, has raised $10 million from Crane Venture Partners and others.

Early Bird pricing ends tonight for TechCrunch Founder Summit

Save up to $190 on your pass to TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026. Early Bird pricing ends today, at 11:59 p.m. PT, after which rates increase. Register now.

Polymarket says hackers stole users’ funds

The prediction market giant Polymarket said it’s refunding users who had funds stolen due to a third-party breach.

a16z-backed Base Power is offering cheaper electricity to the power grid that needs it most

Base Power is skipping the PJM’s troubled interconnection queue by placing its batteries at people’s homes, offering backup services in exchange.

Anthropic’s Claude is winning over paid consumers, a market owned by ChatGPT

Despite ChatGPT’s commanding market lead, consumers who pay for AI have been increasingly choosing Anthropic’s Claude, data shows.

General Intuition’s $2.3B bet that video games can train AI agents for the real world

General Intuition has raised $320 million to scale AI trained on millions of hours of gameplay, betting action data can help AI develop something closer to human intuition.

General Intuition’s $2.3B bet that video games can train AI agents for the real world

General Intuition has raised $320 million to scale AI trained on millions of hours of gameplay, betting action data can help AI develop something closer to human intuition.