Latest AI News
Startup Battlefield 200 applications close May 27: A shot at VC access, global visibility, TechCrunch coverage, and $100K
Startup Battlefield 200applications are open, but only for three more weeks. Apply by May 27 for your shot at VC access, global visibility, TechCrunch coverage, $100,000 equity-free, and more opportunities for major scaling impact. Pre-Series A founders — and anyone who knows a startup worth backing — this is your reminder: The deadline is approaching fast, and the strongest contenders are already entering the arena. If your startup has been nominated, don’t wait.Complete your application now before the window closes. Know a startup that deserves to step into the spotlight?Nominate themnow to give them time to complete the application by the deadline. This is not just another pitch competition. Startup Battlefield 200 puts you on the main stage atTechCrunch Disrupt 2026in front of 10,000+ attendees, top-tier investors, media, and the global TechCrunch audience. You are competing live, getting direct VC feedback, and proving your company belongs among the next breakout startups. Waiting until the last minute is the fastest way to lose your edge. Early applicants have more time to prepare, more opportunities to stand out to the TechCrunch editorial team, and a stronger chance to make an impact before the competition intensifies.Nominate your startup, then finish the job and apply. We’re looking for ambitious early-stage startups building innovative, potentially category-defining products. Applications are open globally across every industry. Most selected companies are pre-Series A, though select Series A startups may qualify case by case. A functional MVP and clear product demo are required. Most importantly, we’re looking for founders building with vision, execution, and real market impact. This is the same launchpad wherecompanies like Dropbox, Discord, Fitbit, Trello, and Mint gained early momentum. Thousands apply every year. Only 200 are selected. Just 20 finalists pitch live on the Disrupt Stage. One startup takes the crown. Selected startups receive one of the highest ROI opportunities available to early-stage founders. It’s free to apply, and the potential return — from investor exposure to media coverage and customer growth — can create real scaling impact. Applications close May 27. The founders who break through are not waiting until the final hour — they are already making their move. If you are building something category-defining, or know a founder who is, now is the time to step forward.Nominateyour startup — or one that deserves the spotlight — andcomplete your applicationbefore the deadline runs out.
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How Anthropic’s Mythos has rewritten Firefox’s approach to cybersecurity
When Anthropic unveiled its new Mythos model in April, it also delivered a stern warning to anyone developing software. The model was so powerful at sniffing out software vulnerabilities,the lab claimed, that it had discovered thousands of high-severity bugs that would need to be fixed before it could be made public. Now, security researchers for Mozilla’s Firefox browser are providing a closer look at what that process has looked like in practice, and what Mythos’ powers mean for software security at large. In a post published on Thursday, Mozilla said Mythos has unearthed a wealth of high-severity bugs, including some that had lain dormant in the code for more than a decade. That’s a significant improvement from what AI security tools were capable of even six months ago. Until now, AI bug-finding tools have come with severe drawbacks, often inundating security teams withlow quality reports and false positives. But Mozilla’s researchers say the latest generation of tools have turned a corner, particularly now that agentic systems can assess their own work and filter out bad results. “It is difficult to overstate how much this dynamic changed for us over a few short months,” the researchers wrote. “First, the models got a lot more capable. Second, we dramatically improved our techniques forharnessingthese models.” The results are striking: In April 2026, Firefox shipped 423 bug fixes, compared to just 31 exactly a year earlier. The researchers have also published details on 12 of the bugs, which range from a pair of unusual sandbox vulnerabilities, to a 15-year-old error in how the browser parses an HTML element. “These things are actually just suddenly very good,” Brian Grinstead, a distinguished engineer at Mozilla, told TechCrunch. “We see that on our own internal scanning, we see that on external bug reports, and we see that in all sorts of signals across the industry.” The fact that the system helped reveal vulnerabilities in Firefox’s “sandbox” system is particularly impressive, given how intricate an attack that exploits it needs to be. To find sandbox vulnerabilities, the model must write a compromised patch for the browser, then attack the most secure part of the software with the new code implemented. Finding and demonstrating the bug is a delicate, multi-step process, requiring both creativity and close attention. To put this into context,Mozilla’s bug bounty programpays researchers who can find a bug in Firefox’s sandbox up to $20,000 — the highest reward available. Despite the top-dollar bounty, however, Grinstead says Mythos is finding more sandbox issues than human researchers ever did. “We do get them,” he told TechCrunch, “but not at the volume that we are able to find with this technique.” Notably, the Firefox team still isn’t using AI to fix the bugs, despite well-documented progress in AI coding tools. The team does ask AI to code up patches for each bug, but the resulting code usually can’t be deployed directly, and instead serves as a model for a human engineer. “For the bugs we’re talking about in this post, every single one is one engineer writing a patch and one engineer reviewing it,” Grinstead says. “We have not found it to be automatable.” It’s still not clear how AI’s emerging capabilities will change the broader balance of power in cybersecurity. One month since Mythos was previewed, most of the bugs discovered likely haven’t been patched, which makes it hard to capture the full scope of their impact. Anthropic has been scrupulous about following responsible disclosure norms, but it’s likely bad actors are using similar techniques behind the scenes, even if the models they’re using aren’t quite as good. Speaking ata recent event, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei was optimistic that the new tools would ultimately favor defenders. “If we handle this right, we could be in a better position than we started, because we fixed all these bugs. There are only so many bugs to find,” Amodei said. “So I think there’s a better world on the other side of this.” Having dealt with the gritty details, Grinstead has a more measured view: “It’s useful for both attackers and defenders, but having the tool available shifts the advantage a little bit to defense. Realistically, nobody knows the answer to this yet.”
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Spotify’s AI DJ now supports French, German, Italian and Brazilian Portuguese
Spotify said on Thursday that its interactive AI DJ feature now supports four additional languages: French, German, Italian, and Brazilian Portuguese. Until now, the feature, which you can interact with to request songs and get AI-powered spoken commentary, was only available in English and Spanish. The company said the AI DJs have different names and personalities to suit their respective languages: Maia, Ben, Alex, and Dani. Besides expanding support for new languages, the company is bringing the feature to Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, South Korea and Switzerland. The AI DJ is now available in more than 75 countries. Spotify’s initial version of the AI DJ used to just provide commentary on songs while playing tracks that users would like. But over the last few years, the company has made attempts to make the feature more interactive. In May 2025, the streaming service updated the feature tolet users chat with the AI DJ and make requeststo change the mood or genre. The company also added the ability toprompt the AI DJto play tracks, similar to how ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini operate. The company has been adding more AI features to the app, such as the ability to createcustom playlists of songs or podcastsby simply describing what they want to listen to.
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Big Tech is Panic Building Its Own OpenClaw
OpenClaw may still be early and imperfect, but it has clearly pushed Silicon Valley to rethink what AI assistants could eventually become.
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Ecofy Pulls In $15 Mn From Mirova to Deepen India's Green Lending Stack
Green-only NBFC Ecofy is doubling down on distributed clean energy finance.
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Vi Partners With PhysicsWallah to Bundle Mobile Data With Competitive Exam Prep
The educational material spans kindergarten to Class 12, along with preparation for examinations such as JEE, NEET, UPSC, CUET, GATE, Olympiads and defence entrance tests.
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Yellow.ai Launches Multilingual Voice AI Platform With Cloning Support
Yellow.ai’s enterprise voice AI system is built as a fully integrated architecture for speech recognition, conversational AI, and voice synthesis.
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InMobi Acquires AI-Powered iOS Growth Platform MobileAction for Ad Intelligence
InMobi expects the acquisition to strengthen its advertising capabilities.
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$32 Billion Later, Google Wants to Secure Every Cloud, Not Just Its Own
Google Cloud's $32 billion acquisition of Wiz marks a pivotal transition in enterprise computing.
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Mira Murati Says Sam Altman Was ‘Creating Chaos’ at OpenAI During Musk Trial
Murati briefly served as OpenAI’s interim CEO after Altman was temporarily removed by the board in 2023.
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MongoDB Bets Big on Enterprise AI With Unified Production-Ready Platform
MangoDB’s new capabilities aim to help enterprises deploy AI agents faster, cheaper, and at scale.
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Voice AI Startup Krisp Launches Infra Platform to Make AI Agents Reliable
Voice AI company Krisp has introduced VIVA 2.0 to help AI-powered voice agents handle interruptions, background noise, and conversational cues.
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