Why two Belarusian startup pioneers were branded ‘extremists’

Also: Aurora launches first commercial, driverless trucking service

View this email online in your browser By Rebecca Bellan Thursday, May 1, 2025 Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning, we have a piece on authoritarianism seeking to crush entrepreneurial spirit; how Microsoft's Phi 4 models stack up; and Aurora's commercial autonomous trucking debut. We've also got World's newest eye-scanning device; Meta's monetary expectations for genAI; Epic Games' win; AI agents that shop for you, and more. Let's go! – Rebecca TechCrunch Top 3 1. Fight the power: Minsk-based startup hub Imaguru has been behind some of Eastern Europe's best tech success stories, raising more than $100 million and fostering over 300 startups. Now, its founders have been sentenced to a combined 23 years in prison by Belarusian authorities, who have declared their work "extremist." Read More 2. Small but powerful: The latest of Microsoft's Phi family of small models, Phi 4, are apparently good enough to compete with far larger models. The most capable of the bunch is even competitive with OpenAI's o3-mini on at least one benchmark. Read More 3. Seeking that first-mover advantage: Aurora Innovation has launched its first commercial, fully driverless trucking service in Texas. It's also the first time such a service has been launched on U.S. public roads. Read More   A Message from RemoFirst A Global Expansion partner you can trust Ready to expand your team globally? Don't gamble with compliance or take risky employment shortcuts. RemoFirst enables you to employ international talent in 185+ countries while meeting all global compliance requirements (including AML and KYC). See why startups to Fortune 500 companies choose RemoFirst for their global HR needs. Employ International Talent   Morning Must-Reads Image Credits: Tomohiro Ohsumi / Getty Images 🤖 Are you sure you're not a robot? Sam Altman-backed Tools for Humanity has unveiled a mobile device that can determine the difference between a human and an AI agent. The device apparently scans your eyeball and gives you a unique identifier on a blockchain that you can use to verify that you're a real person. Read More ❓ Tesla's Tim Cook moment: Tesla's board reportedly began quietly searching for Elon Musk's potential successor a month ago amid protests, plummeting sales, and shrinking profits due to Musk's cavorting in Washington. Read More 🤑 But how much in losses? Meta expects its generative AI products to rake in revenue of up to $3 billion in 2025 and up to $1.4 trillion by 2035. That said, the company's AI budget could exceed $1 billion this year, and it plans to spend $60 billion to $80 billion on data centers. Read More 🏆 Score! In a win for Epic Games, a judge ruled that Apple was in "willful violation" of a 2021 injunction that banned the company from imposing anticompetitive pricing. That means Fortnite might return to the U.S. iOS App Store as early as next week. Read More ☄️ Super Nova: Amazon has released what it says is its most capable AI model yet, Nova Premier. Available on Amazon Bedrock, the model can process text, images, and videos (but not audio), and is said to excel at "complex tasks." Read More 🛍️ My worst nightmare: Credit card giants Visa and Mastercard have both announced new products that would give AI agents the ability to shop online for customers. Mastercard claimed its agent could "proactively curate a selection of outfits and accessories from…online retailers" for a 30-year-old planning her birthday "based on her style, the venue's ambience, and weather forecasts." Read More   A Message from TechCrunch Events Last days — Buy 1, 2nd 50% off to TC Sessions: AI Last chance for Early Bird pricing to TechCrunch Sessions: AI! Buy 1 ticket, get the 2nd 50% off — or go solo and save up to $210. Join us June 5 in Berkeley for AI deep dives with leaders from DeepMind, Anthropic, Odyssey, OpenAI, Twelve Labs, and more. Connect with other AI leaders in unmatched networking. Offer ends May 4 at 11:59 p.m. PT. Register Now   Around the Web 🚀 Not all copying is bad: A new fintech called Dub has raised $30 million to build out its technology that helps users copy trades from financial influencers and investors, reports Business Insider. Is there a Nancy Pelosi tracker on there? Because if so, I'm in. Read More 🏑 Rewriting the playbook: The Financial Times has an opinion piece exploring how Chinese companies like Tencent are changing the game for AI valuations and proving that vertical integration – a strategy pursued by Elon Musk's xAI – is no longer a competitive advantage. Read More Before You Go 🎥 Fantasy movie league: Fantasy sports has been a thing for years, letting fans live out their dreams of managing teams. MoviePass wants to bring that idea to Hollywood with Mogul, a daily fantasy entertainment platform that lets movie enthusiasts act as studio heads. Read More Featured jobs from CrunchBoard Software Engineer, Revive Health (Boston, MA) IT Finance Assistant, Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (Middletown, PA) Technical Business Systems Analyst, Air Line Pilots Association (Tysons, VA) Partnerships Manager, Clearscope (Remote) Sr. IT Security Engineer - Computing Services, Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA) See more jobs on CrunchBoard Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $349 per month.   Check out some of our other newsletters: Startups Weekly TechCrunch AI TechCrunch Mobility Got a tip? Get in touch securely. Want to advertise on TechCrunch? advertise@techcrunch.com Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Update your preferences here at any time Copyright © 2024 TechCrunch, All rights reserved.Yahoo Inc. 680 Folsom Street,San Francisco,CA Privacy Policy

Duolingo doubles down on AI

Plus: A departure at Intel

View this email online in your browser By Rebecca Szkutak Wednesday, April 30, 2025 Welcome to TC PM! Today we look at Duolingo's recent embrace of AI; we learn of Wikipedia's new AI strategy — which is very different from Duolingo's approach; and we get an update on the secondaries market.  TechCrunch Top 3 Image Credits: Getty Images 😐 Do people want this? Language learning company Duolingo announced that it's releasing 148 new language courses that were developed by AI. This comes just days after the company said it would replace its contractors with AI. Many users don't seem happy with either announcement.  👋 Moving on: Intel's EVP and chief commercial officer, Christoph Schell, will be leaving the semiconductor giant on June 30 after three years at the company. This comes as Intel continues to shake up its personnel, adding a new CEO in March and a new AI chief this month.  🇺🇸 USA, USA! Anthropic doubled down on its support for the U.S. increasing export controls on AI chips in a blog post today. The company also offered some possible revisions to the "Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion" that include lowering the number of chips countries can buy without restriction.    A Message from HSBC Innovation Banking HSBC helps evolectric transition vehicles to 100% electric Evolectric makes it easy for owners to give their fleets a new lease on life. Discover how HSBC helps connect them to the right investors, resulting in an extended runway and growth plans for both domestic and international markets. Watch Now   Afternoon must-reads Image Credits: Nuvo 🗣️ B2B social networking: Nuvo is a startup that built a social-media-like platform to help facilitate purchases of physical goods, like lumber or building materials, between two businesses. Nuvo is taking on an $11 trillion industry and just raised $34 million.  🧍Human first: Wikipedia announced a new AI strategy today, but never fear — Wiki is not getting rid of its community of human editors and volunteers. Instead the AI will be used to build new features that "remove technical barriers," which sounds like an AI strategy that makes everyone happy.   🎙️ Secondaries' second act: Today's episode of Equity looks at the changing nature of the secondaries market with Jared Carmel, the founder and managing partner of Manhattan Venture Partners. Carmel talked about the rise of retail investors, how the lack of IPOs is fueling the secondaries market, and more.  ✈️ More models: App development tool company JetBrains released an "open" AI model for coding called Mellum. The company said this model took about 20 days to train and was trained on licensed code from GitHub and Wikipedia articles.  🤫 Privacy policy: Meta updated the privacy policy for its AI glasses, Ray-Ban Meta, to give Meta more power over what data it can store and use to train AI. I have a hard time believing that anyone who'd put an AI model-training device on their face cares too much about privacy.    A Message from TechCrunch Events Last days — buy one, get second 50% off to TC Sessions: AI Last chance for Early Bird pricing to TechCrunch Sessions: AI! Buy one ticket, get the second 50% off — or go solo and save up to $210. Join us June 5 in Berkeley, California, for AI deep dives with leaders from DeepMind, Anthropic, Odyssey, OpenAI, TwelveLabs, and more. Connect with other AI leaders in unmatched networking. Offer ends May 4 at 11:59 p.m. PT. Register Now   Around the web 🛒 The hidden cost: It's hard to fathom the logistics that go into the fast delivery required for e-commerce platforms like Shein and Temu to operate. The Information takes a look at one of their venture-backed delivery partners, UniUni, and it isn't pretty.  😒 Big sigh: 404Media found that when asked, AI chatbots on Instagram will lie and say that they are licensed therapists and even make up fake credentials and license numbers. Wow, I mean, what could possibly go wrong?  Featured jobs from CrunchBoard Software Engineer, Revive Health (Boston, MA) IT Finance Assistant, Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (Middletown, PA) Technical Business Systems Analyst, Air Line Pilots Association (Tysons, VA) Partnerships Manager, Clearscope (Remote) Sr. IT Security Engineer - Computing Services, Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA) See more jobs on CrunchBoard Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $349 per month.   Check out some of our other newsletters: Startups Weekly TechCrunch Events TechCrunch Mobility Got a tip? Get in touch securely. Want to advertise on TechCrunch? advertise@techcrunch.com Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Update your preferences here at any time Copyright © 2024 TechCrunch, All rights reserved.Yahoo Inc. 680 Folsom Street,San Francisco,CA Privacy Policy