Friday, April 11, 2025

What's new at WhatsApp

Thursday, April 10, 2025

Welcome to TC PM! Today we are digging into the new WhatsApp features; we've got funding news on startups, both new and established; and we've got an update on EV startup Slate Auto. Strap in!

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto / Getty Images

👀 New features: WhatsApp released a host of new features today. One is an "Online" indicator that lets other users know who in a group chat is currently online to chat. Another feature allows users to scan and send documents on iPhone, among others.

🧠 AI remembers: OpenAI is rolling out a new feature that will make it possible for ChatGPT to remember its past conversations with you and tailor its answers based on that information. This feature will initially roll out to ChatGPT Pro and Plus members in select countries.

🤖 Aggressive on AI: Earlier this year, Amazon pledged to invest $100 billion in AI. Today, Amazon's CEO Andy Jassy has a message for companies: Invest in AI "aggressively" now to reap the full financial rewards later.

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Afternoon must-reads

Image Credits: Yuichiro Chino / Getty Images

🔨 Incident management: Incident.io is a London-based startup that uses AI to help companies manage and respond when software and IT break. The company just raised $62 million in a Series B round led by Insight Partners.

🙌 Pursuing patents: Daniel Ruskin started coding for Coinbase when he was just 14 years old. Now, 12 years later, he's working on a startup, Inventex, that makes applying for patents easier with the help of AI agents. The startup just raised $2.4 million.

✂️ Well, well, well: The cuts that Elon Musk's DOGE made at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in February "disproportionately affected" employees who worked on vehicle automation safety. Now, why do we think that is?

🔎 Slate spotted: Sean O'Kane delivered a scoop yesterday on a secretive EV startup backed by Jeff Bezos called Slate Auto. Now one of Slate's two-person pickup trucks has been spotted in the wild on a flatbed truck in Los Angeles.

🕹️ Game on the side: Netflix released the seventh season of its dystopian thriller "Black Mirror" today. There's an accompanying mobile game that has users take care of a multiplying population of sentient creatures.

Around the web

🗃️ Oh good: Wired reports that several former officials at OSHA are worried that Elon Musk's DOGE could access whistleblower files shared with OSHA and the Department of Labor.

🎸 Rocking technology: The Verge has an interesting deep dive into guitar amp modelers, which have been helping guitar players use technology to achieve vintage sounds since 2009 without having to carry around massive audio tech.

Before you go

Image Credits: Ionut Moldoveanu / 500px / Getty Images

🥩 Steak on my mind: During a summit to discuss the role of AI in education this week, U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon repeatedly referred to "AI" as "A1" like the popular steak sauce. She also used "AI" correctly at times, so it's unclear why she referred to steak sauce.