The business of tech stories our desk judged worth your time, written so anyone can follow them.
Coast, a company that automates expense tracking, raised $35 million. Its customers are heating, cooling, electrical and utility firms with crews in the field.
Read more: Coast raises $35 million to automate expense tracking for trade firmsInsightly now connects its customer management system to AI assistants through a shared standard, so an assistant can look up your contacts and deals.
Read more: Insightly lets AI assistants read your customer records directlyA TechCrunch list shows AI products shutting down fast, from small startups to OpenAI, and about 42% of AI projects get dropped by their own companies.
Read more: Many AI products have already shut down, even from big namesA developer says code inside the hit phone game Block Blast is built to make players lose, and that ads drive its millions in revenue. Here is what is known.
Read more: A developer took apart Block Blast to see if the game is riggedEngageLab's new Agent Email tool lets AI read and answer customer replies to business emails. It is open only to enterprise customers for now.
Read more: New AI tool lets companies answer customer email replies automaticallyBernstein Research says only about 35% of announced US AI data center capacity will likely get built, so big announcements may not mean much.
Read more: Many planned AI data centers may never actually get builtBillionaire Mark Cuban says AI hacking is old tricks at huge scale, and that businesses can fight back by using just as much AI on defense.
Read more: Mark Cuban: Fight hacker AI with defensive AIAI helped find two critical flaws in PHP, which up to 70% of websites use, and companies are racing to fix them before hackers strike.
Read more: AI found two serious flaws in software that runs most websitesInvestor Paul Wick sees echoes of the dot-com bubble in AI, but says today looks healthier and crash fears are overblown. Here is what he says to watch.
Read more: Veteran investor says fears of an AI crash are overblownSeraphis Group says it will invest $3 billion in AI startups over 12 months, a hint that buyers may favor tools with paying customers over flashy demos.
Read more: Seraphis Group sets aside $3 billion to back AI startupsNvidia now helps fund and guarantee the AI projects that buy its chips. As cloud partners slump, investors are asking how much risk that adds up to.
Read more: Nvidia is lending a hand to its customers, and now that is being testedWhatsApp has begun rolling out Communities, which bring many group chats into one place, alongside bigger groups of up to 1,024 people.
Read more: WhatsApp starts rolling out Communities, a hub for many group chatsShare-ify has launched S.A.F.E. Score, an AI tool that rates food suppliers on risk using audits, recalls, complaints and missing paperwork.
Read more: Food safety software now gives suppliers an AI-generated risk scoreSolo.io has released agentshield, a free open source tool that guards a company's existing systems against AI agents it does not control.
Read more: Solo.io Launches Free Tool to Guard Systems From Rogue AI AgentsCISA says attackers are already exploiting serious flaws in Collabora Online and Arista VeloCloud Orchestrator, so any business using either should check for fixes.
Read more: US agency warns hackers are attacking two business toolsDext has released a free tool that lets accounting firms question their client records from ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot, and it raises a privacy question for clients.
Read more: Accountants can now ask ChatGPT or Claude about their own client dataPeec AI has launched an assistant that checks what ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity say about your brand and suggests fixes, though heavier use may cost extra credits.
Read more: Peec AI adds a helper to fix how AI chatbots describe your brandKarta AI, a startup that builds voice agents to answer bank and insurance calls, raised $3 million. It says its AI resolves about 70% of borrower queries alone.
Read more: Karta AI raises $3 million for voice agents that answer bank callsAzoma raised $11.2 million to help big brands get found by AI shopping assistants, a sign that being seen by AI may soon matter for anyone who sells products.
Read more: Startup raises $11.2 million to help brands win over AI shopping assistantsTemplafy has launched Templafy Team, which lets work teams build and share their own AI document helpers. It comes with a 14-day free trial.
Read more: Templafy lets work teams build shared AI helpers for documents1Password says its yearly recurring revenue passed $500 million, as businesses adopt AI coding tools and agents that need safe access to accounts.
Read more: 1Password tops $500M in yearly revenue as AI tools drive demandKarta AI, an Indian startup, raised $3 million for voice AI that answers bank and insurer calls. Callers can still ask for a human, and fraud calls go to one.
Read more: Indian startup raises $3 million for AI that answers bank callsAt TechCrunch Disrupt, founders said phone calls, live events and well-chosen creators can win customers, and that repeat use shows who will stay.
Read more: Startups can win loyal customers without going viral onlineUtopai, an AI film studio, raised $60 million at a $1 billion value, a sign that money is flowing into AI video, not just chatbots.
Read more: AI film studio Utopai raises $60M at a $1 billion value
