Rebecca Szkutak

Nearly 20 U.S.-based AI startups have raised $100 million or more in 2026 within the first two months, signaling continued momentum in mega-round funding at high valuations following $76 billion in AI mega-rounds during 2025.

“Author of "Here Are the 17 US-based AI Companies That Have Raised $100M or More in 2026" in TechCrunch”

Oshen's autonomous micro-robots (C-Stars) successfully survived Category 5 hurricane conditions while collecting ocean data, demonstrating their durability for long-term ocean deployments.

“Author of "Oshen's Robots Survive Category 5 Hurricane to Collect Ocean Data"”

Salesforce has launched a new AI agent version of Slackbot for Business+ and Enterprise+ customers that can find information, draft emails, schedule meetings, and integrate with other enterprise tools like Microsoft Teams and Google Drive.

“Author of "Slackbot Just Became an AI Agent"”

Enterprise venture investors predict 2026 will be the year AI transitions from productivity tool to labor-displacing automation, with significant layoffs and budget reallocation from human hiring to AI spending.

“Author of "Investors Predict AI Is Coming for Labor in 2026" in TechCrunch”

Anthropic expanded its $200 million partnership with Snowflake to bring Claude LLMs directly into Snowflake's platform, enabling enterprises to run AI agents and multimodal analysis on their own secure data.

“Author of "Claude Just Moved Inside Your Company's Data"”

Coco Robotics appointed UCLA professor Bolei Zhou as chief AI scientist to lead a new physical AI research lab, leveraging millions of miles of autonomous delivery robot data to accelerate real-world AI system development.

“Author of "Coco Robotics Taps UCLA Professor to Lead New Physical AI Research Lab" in TechCrunch”

Adobe launched AI Foundry, an enterprise service enabling businesses to build custom generative AI models trained on their own branding and intellectual property using Adobe's Firefly foundation.

“Author of "Adobe's Custom AI Foundry for Enterprises" in TechCrunch”

Salesforce launched Agentforce 360, featuring Agent Script prompting tool, Agentforce Builder deployment platform, and expanded Slack integration with reasoning models from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google to compete in the crowded enterprise AI market.

“Author of "Salesforce's Agentforce 360" in TechCrunch”

China's government has officially banned domestic tech companies from purchasing Nvidia AI chips, intensifying restrictions on the chipmaker's access to the Chinese market amid U.S.-China geopolitical tensions.

“Author of "China Tells Its Tech Companies They Can't Buy AI Chips From Nvidia" in TechCrunch”

Runway, a visual AI generation company, is expanding beyond creative tools into robotics and autonomous vehicle training by offering world model simulations that reduce costs and training time.

“Author of "Why Runway Is Eyeing the Robotics Industry for Future Revenue Growth" in TechCrunch”

OpenAI signed a historic $300 billion compute power deal with Oracle over five years, marking one of the largest cloud contracts ever and signaling a shift away from exclusive Microsoft dependency.

“Author of "OpenAI and Oracle Reportedly Ink Historic Cloud Computing Deal" in TechCrunch”

Runway's world models, originally built for creative video and photo generation, are attracting robotics and self-driving car companies seeking cost-effective simulation training alternatives to real-world scenarios.

“Author of "Runway's World Models Attract Robotics Industry Interest" in TechCrunch”

Robomart unveiled its RM5 level-four autonomous delivery robot capable of carrying 500 pounds with batch ordering, aiming to make on-demand delivery profitable with a $3 flat fee model.

“Author of "Beep boop, here's your food"”

Two Chinese nationals were arrested for illegally smuggling tens of millions of dollars in high-performance Nvidia AI chips to China in violation of U.S. export control laws.

“Author of "Two Arrested for Smuggling AI Chips to China" in TechCrunch”