VCs abandon old rules for a ‘funky time’ of investing in AI startups

If there’s one thing that VCs agree on when backing AI startups, it’s that AI requires a different investment approach than prior technological shifts. “It’s a funky time,” said Aileen Lee, founder and managing partner of Cowboy Ventures, onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025. The longtime VC noted that the rules of investing have significantly shifted…

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Apple’s new App Review Guidelines clamp down on apps sharing personal data with ‘third-party AI’

Apple on Thursday introduced a new set of App Review Guidelines for developers, which now specifically state that apps must disclose and obtain users’ permission before sharing personal data with third-party AI. The change comes ahead of the iPhone maker’s plan to introduce its own AI-upgraded version of Siri in 2026. That update will see…

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Google’s SIMA 2 agent uses Gemini to reason and act in virtual worlds

Google DeepMind shared on Thursday a research preview of SIMA 2, the next generation of its generalist AI agent that integrates the language and reasoning powers of Gemini, Google’s large language model, to move beyond simply following instructions to understanding and interacting with its environment.  Like many of DeepMind’s projects, including AlphaFold, the first version…

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6sense founder Amanda Kahlow raises $30 million for new human-replacement AI sales startup 1mind

Although LLM-powered AI agents are a fairly new phenomenon, one of the areas where they’ve been most popular so far is in sales. 1mind, a startup co-founded by Amanda Kahlow, has been quietly shipping its sales agent, named Mindy, for about a year.   On Monday, the startup announced a $30 million Series A round led by Battery Ventures. This brings 1mind’s total raise to $40 million, the company…

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