Data center operator Crusoe has secured a multiyear cloud capacity agreement with AI search company Perplexity AI, providing access to Nvidia GB300 processors to support the startup's model training and inference workloads.
AI marketing startup Profound has raised $180 million in Series D funding at a $1.8 billion valuation, co-led by Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins. The platform helps brands optimize their visibility in AI-powered search results and answer engines, with Estée Lauder announcing a strategic partnership.
San Francisco-based startup Clipto has raised $15 million in equity financing at a $250 million valuation to expand its AI technology that searches through terabytes of video and forgotten files using natural language queries.
San Francisco-based startup Clipto has raised $15 million in equity financing at a $250 million valuation to expand its AI technology that searches through terabytes of video and forgotten files using natural language queries.
Google has expanded AI Mode with new travel features that allow US users to track flight prices, compare rewards programs, and book hotels directly through conversational search using Google Pay. Hotel chains and travel sites remain the merchant of record and handle customer service.
AI startup Keenable has emerged from stealth with $26 million in seed funding led by Accel to develop search infrastructure that gives AI agents cheaper and more continuous access to web information. The company aims to revamp web search, which was originally built for human users, to better serve AI chatbots and agents.
The Alliance de la Presse d'Information Générale (APIG) has asked France's competition authority to take action against Google's AI Overviews feature, arguing the AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of search results deprive news publishers of web traffic and violate Google's 2022 compensation commitments to French media.
A Manhattan federal judge rejected Perplexity AI's motion to dismiss Reddit's copyright lawsuit, which accuses the AI startup of illegally scraping Reddit's content to train its AI-powered search engine. The ruling allows Reddit's core DMCA claims to move forward.
Reddit is using large language models to fight a new wave of spam where brands plant stealth marketing content on the platform hoping AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini will cite it. The company reports blocking 23 million spam views daily and reducing user exposure to spam by 20%.
Airbnb is rolling out major changes including automating 45% of customer support with AI, testing AI-powered search, adding hotels and car rentals to its platform, and implementing a new U.S. fee policy by September 15 that has frustrated hosts.
Alibaba is preparing to unveil integration of its Qwen AI platform with Taobao marketplace, shifting from keyword-based search to conversational AI-driven shopping. The move represents a major product transformation for one of the world's largest e-commerce platforms.
Google is testing 'Ask YouTube,' a conversational AI search feature that replaces standard video lists with results combining text, full-length videos, and Shorts. The feature is rolling out to Premium subscribers in the U.S. on an opt-in basis.
