TechCrunch Top 3

Amazon, Meta join fight to end Google Pay, PhonePe dominance in India: PhonePe and Google Pay command 80% of India's UPI instant payments network. Rivals are set to meet with regulators to lobby for restrictions. Read More

On the stand, Elon Musk can't escape his own tweets: Elon Musk took the stand for the second day for his attempt to legally dismantle OpenAI. Read More

Meta says its business AI now facilitates 10 million conversations a week: Meta said over 8 billion advertisers have used at least one of its gen AI tools Read More

Disrupt 2026: Where deals and ideas ignite

Oct 13–15 at San Francisco's Moscone West, 10,000 founders, investors, and operators gather for high-signal insights, curated connections, and real momentum.

Morning Must-Reads

Spotify introduces verified artist badges to help distinguish humans from AI: As AI-generated artists and tracks flood music streaming platforms, Spotify is rolling out a new “Verified by Spotify” badge to help listeners more easily identify authentic human artists. To receive the badge, artists must meet certain criteria. Spotify looks for an identifiable artist presence both on and off platform, like concert dates, merch, and linked social accounts on their artist profile. Profiles that primarily represent AI-generated music or AI-persona artists are not eligible for verification. Additionally, artists must have consistent listener activity and engagement over time. Spotify is focusing on artist profiles that people are actively seeking out over a sustained period of time, rather than those who are experiencing one-time spikes in engagement. At launch, more than 99% of artists that listeners actively search for will be verified. Most are independent, representing a broad mix of genres, career stages, and regions, Spotify says. Users will start to see the new badges appear on artist profiles and next to artist names in search results over the coming weeks. The badges will feature "Verified by Spotify" text alongside a green checkmark. Given the vast number of profiles on the platform, Spotify says verification will roll out on an ongoing basis, and that the absence of a badge does not mean a profile will not receive one in the future. Spotify is prioritizing artists with active fan interest and notable contributions to music culture, rather than so-called "functional music" creators — think algorithm-optimized background or focus playlists — whose content is designed Read More

Google Cloud surpasses $20B, but says growth was capacity-constrained: Google Cloud topped $20B in quarterly revenue for the first time, fueled by surging demand for AI. But capacity constraints mean it could have grown even faster. Read More

Sources: Anthropic could raise a new $50B round at a valuation of $900B: The maker of Claude has received multiple pre-emptive offers at valuations in the $850 billion to $900 billion range, according to sources familiar with the matter. Read More

Satya Nadella says he's ready to 'exploit' the new OpenAI deal: Microsoft gets to offer OpenAI's tech to its cloud customers and doesn't have to pay for it. "We fully plan to exploit it," Nadella said. Read More

Instagram cracks down on content aggregators: The update targets content aggregators that don't post original content and instead simply re-upload others' posts. Read More

Last but Not Least

Google gains 25M subscriptions in Q1, driven by YouTube and Google One: Google added 25M paid subscriptions in Q1, reaching 350M total, as YouTube and Google One grow. Read More