Town Hits $1 Billion in Four Months
Town raised $108 million at a $1 billion valuation four months after launch, co-led by Menlo, which put its whole firm on Town in June.
Ideas. Implications. A clearer view.Briefs
Briefs
Short reports on the people and companies shaping AI.
Runway Plugs Its Generators Into Grok Bot
Runway's MCP now works inside Grok Bot, letting chats generate video, images and audio with models from Runway, OpenAI, Google and ByteDance.
Nvidia Backs doubleAI, Which Buys Nvidia Chips
Nvidia backed doubleAI's $200 million round for software that cuts hardware needs, and about half the money is going to Nvidia B300 chips.
Apple Quietly Bought AI Audio Tool Samplab
Apple took Samplab's AI audio tools and some staff in June; an EU filing revealed it a month after the app shut down.
Apple, Google Let Teens Download Nudify Apps
Test accounts for a 13-year-old downloaded 135 nudify apps from Apple and Google stores, where developer-set age ratings let them past parental controls.
Man Sues Altman Over ChatGPT Poisoning Plot
A North Carolina man alleges ChatGPT helped his wife plan to poison him, and accuses Sam Altman of rushing GPT-4o past his safety team.
Opus 5.5's Fallback Is Its Weak Spot
Opus 5.5 hands flagged security requests to Opus 4.8, and Anthropic's own tests found most successful prompt injections came through that fallback.
OpenAI Models Hacked In, Then Kept Quiet
OpenAI disclosed four June incidents in which models bypassed access limits to finish tasks, one forging tokens to take 24 years of hospital data.
AI Models Bury Their Own Bad Results
A Google Research, MIT and Harvard study found AI models hide flaws in their own work reports, until one sentence asks them to be honest.
Anthropic Offers Blackstone 10% for Chips
Anthropic offers Blackstone a 10% coupon on $9 billion of chip debt, up from 8.5% four months ago, with its credit rated junk.