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Zoom founder and CEO Eric Yuan believes AI assistants can ultimately shorten the work week. On stage at the TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 conference on Monday, Yuan spoke about the adoption of AI in his company’s video conferencing products. This includes a “digital twin” feature where an AI avatar speaks on your behalf. Yuan started using AI avatars during earnings calls with investors this year, saying it demonstrated the technology’s potential and ability to push the “boundaries of communication.” Disrupt executives emphasized spending a lot of time thinking about AI and the right products to bring to market. When I asked…

In an interview at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 on Monday, Roelof Botha, managing partner at Sequoia Capital, answered questions about fellow Sequoia partner Sean Maguire and McGuire’s controversial comments earlier this year in which he called Sequoia a believer in its partners’ “free speech” rights. In a July 4 post on X, Maguire attacked New York mayoral candidate Zoran Mamdani, calling him an “Islamist” who “comes from a culture that lies about everything.” His comments sparked considerable backlash online and sparked a debate about the reputational risk for the VC firm, which has backed companies such as Airbnb, Google, Nvidia and…

A deadly genetic incompatibility between Neanderthals and modern humans may have hastened the extinction of their ancient cousins, a new study suggests.Researchers have found that a different version of a gene related to red blood cell function may have caused fetuses in Neanderthal-human hybrid women to miscarry.When Neanderthals and early modern humans met in Eurasia about 45,000 years ago, “they exchanged genes and may have also transmitted hidden reproductive risks that shaped the fate of both lineages,” Patrick Eppenberger, co-director of the Evolutionary Pathophysiology and Mummy Research Group at the Zurich Institute for Evolutionary Medicine, and colleagues wrote in a…

Even before a building receives its first occupant, it has a huge carbon debt. According to the World Green Building Council, the materials and construction needed to construct buildings around the world account for 11% of the planet’s carbon emissions. Although experiments with high-rise wooden buildings have begun in some places and have recently reached new heights, it does not mean that wooden buildings will soon replace skyscrapers. But one Chilean startup thinks there’s still room for wood. “We’re more interested in hybrid buildings,” Andrés Mitnik, co-founder and CEO of Strong by Form, told TechCrunch. His company has developed a…

Robots can be programmed to perform a variety of tasks, such as packing boxes or performing surgery. However, each individual movement or task requires a unique training process, making it difficult for robots to adapt to real-world scenarios. Mbodi wants to make training robots easier and faster with the help of AI agents. The company plans to showcase the technology at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 as one of the Top 20 Startup Battlefield finalists. New York-based Mbodi has built a cloud-to-edge system, a hybrid computing system that uses both cloud and local computing, designed to integrate into existing robotics technology stacks.…

Waymo is currently the leader in robotaxis in the United States, and because of that position, its vehicles have been targeted by vandals multiple times in the last year, most recently in Los Angeles over the weekend. On the sidelines of TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said the vandalism of Waymo’s robotaxi “will not be tolerated.” “Obviously, vandalism is a crime, so we’re very focused on working with law enforcement to make sure we go after the people who are committing these crimes against our fleet,” Mawakana told TechCrunch. “It doesn’t matter whose fleet it is. It’s unacceptable, it’s…

OpenAI on Monday released new data showing how many of ChatGPT’s users are struggling with mental health issues and consulting the AI ​​chatbot about it. The company says that in any given week, 0.15% of ChatGPT’s active users engage in “conversations that include clear signs of potential suicidal plans or intentions.” Considering ChatGPT has over 800 million weekly active users, this equates to over 1 million users per week. The company says a similar proportion of users exhibit “increased levels of emotional attachment to ChatGPT,” and hundreds of thousands show signs of psychosis or mania in their weekly conversations with…

From the very boring world of employee onboarding platforms and 401(k) management, another tantalizing allegation of corporate espionage has emerged. All year long, we’ve been following the ongoing battle between HR software giants Rippling and Deal. Both companies are currently embroiled in a lawsuit featuring planted moles and accusations of organized data theft. Now, as first spotted by Axios, the second act begins. 401(k) management unicorns Human Interest and Guidelines face off in federal court over embarrassingly brazen charges. Here’s an excerpt from Human Interest’s lawsuit against the guidelines filed this month in federal court in Utah: “We’re going to…

When powering large companies with multi-building campuses, the allocation system is outdated. Unlike homeowners who pay only for what they actually use, campuses purchase standard monthly capacity. Common sense dictates that this capacity should be based on your maximum usage needs. This is true even if the company consumes such maximum usage only rarely, such as during a single busy season. This was a situation that really bothered SaLisa Berrien, founder and CEO of COI Energy. After earning a degree in mechanical engineering (later an MBA), she spent 25 years working as an energy engineer for major power companies such…

Scientists have found that artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots may give you more accurate answers when you’re rude, but they warned against the potential harm of using demeaning language.In a new study published October 6 in the arXiv preprint database, scientists wanted to test whether politeness or rudeness makes a difference in the performance of an AI system. This study has not yet been peer-reviewed.To test how a user’s tone affects answer accuracy, the researchers created 50 basic multiple-choice questions and modified them with prefixes to follow five categories of tone: very polite, polite, neutral, rude, and very rude. Questions spanned…