AI that fits your day.

IEEE Spectrum reports that NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory used Anthropic’s Claude models to help plan two drives by the Perseverance rover on Mars, with humans reviewing the route before upload. In May, NASA and IBM placed a compressed AI model on the International Space Station (ISS) and a satellite to identify phenomena such as floods and clouds; in July, astronauts tested a large language model on questions about maintenance procedures. The magazine describes these experiments as part of a shift toward systems that can interpret their surroundings and plan tasks, although they are not yet ready to take control of a spacecraft.

Robert Ambrose, a former head of a NASA software, robotics and simulation division, says nondeterministic outcomes make testing difficult, but argues that autonomy could be essential for distant missions such as a possible trip to Europa. Icarus Robotics also plans to send its Joy robot to the ISS, starting with teleoperation and using the data to develop autonomy.

Sources: IEEE Spectrum

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Wired reports that hundreds of thousands of AI agents could enter the workforce in the coming months, joining email threads and Slack channels to work as chiefs of staff, engineers and marketing professionals. These systems perform tasks autonomously, but their integration requires new rules for working alongside human employees.

In January, Julie Bedard of Boston Consulting Group and colleagues polled 1,261 managers; 22% said their organizations had already added agents to their org charts, a proportion Bedard expects to grow. Companies including Microsoft and Anything are presenting the systems as coworkers, with names, avatars, roles and the ability to learn communication styles. Microsoft’s Scout, launched in June, can reschedule meetings and draft emails, while Skydive agents work across services including Slack, email and iMessage.

Sources: Wired

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Music startup Thoughtful Things has launched the Kickstarter campaign for its first instrument, Engram. The sampler and groovebox does not rely on the internet: it runs a “tiny AI” locally to alter incoming audio and generate unexpected new sounds, focusing on experimental sound design rather than radio-ready music. The company says its models were designed in-house and trained on open datasets containing only audio licensed for commercial use.

Thoughtful Things also plans to open Engram’s firmware so users can modify it or load their own models. The campaign offers a limited run starting at $675; the retail price has not been announced, but The Verge estimates it will be between $850 and $900, based on the 30 percent discount listed for that pledge.

Sources: The Verge

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Meta’s newly released AI agent Muse was the highlight of the company’s annual Connect event, where Mark Zuckerberg signaled that Meta plans to expand AI features across its products. Unlike OpenAI and Anthropic, which have been focusing on coding and enterprise tools, Meta is betting on a consumer-oriented experience — including a Tamagotchi-style device that the company says is intended only for adults.

On TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, participants discussed whether that strategy fits Meta’s experience embedding products in people’s everyday lives. Sean O’Kane, who tested Muse, said the agent found unclaimed money for him, but described the feature as more of a “party trick” than something likely to drive continued use. The podcast also raised questions about whether users will trust Meta with sensitive information, given that the company’s business depends on advertising.

Sources: TechCrunch

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Google is testing a way to buy products from Flipkart directly through Gemini and AI Mode in India, TechCrunch reports. The limited test shows a “Buy” button to some users for a selection of smartphones, electronics and mobile accessories; the button opens a Flipkart-branded checkout flow without leaving the AI interface. According to a source cited by the site, the experience may expand later in October. A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch that the company regularly tests new features to help people discover and connect with businesses, but provided no further details. The experience appears different from the Google-hosted checkout associated with the Universal Commerce Protocol, a standard the company is developing to enable purchases through AI agents. Amazon listings seen by TechCrunch did not offer the same option.

Sources: TechCrunch

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Synthesia created an interactive digital avatar of a TechCrunch journalist, trained exclusively on an article about why venture-backed startups may commit more fraud than other startups. The avatar answers questions about the story using a combination of the company’s voice, language, and video models; Synthesia also lets customers choose models from Cartesia, ElevenLabs, Google, or OpenAI.

To produce the avatar, the journalist consented to the process, had numerous photos taken, and recorded two minutes of audio in a studio inside the company’s office. Synthesia took a few days to create interactive versions and personal versions that only read scripts. The experience, described by TechCrunch, left the journalist with mixed feelings about the possible role of digital avatars in everyday life.

Sources: TechCrunch

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Microsoft announced a complete redesign of Copilot, bringing chat, app creation, and AI agents together in one interface. The Home tab combines Copilot Chat with Cowork, integrates Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and will include the Today dashboard, while Code lets users create apps, dashboards, and automations by describing them in natural language. Autopilot, formerly Scout, is a persistent cloud-based agent: Microsoft says it can monitor channels, chase responses, and resume projects without new commands, with its own identity, memory, and workspace in the company’s environment.

Microsoft will use user-based billing for chat and Microsoft 365 apps, and usage-based billing for Cowork, Code, Autopilot, and models such as Astra and Fable, The Verge reports. Home and Code will begin rolling out to the Frontier program in the coming weeks, while Autopilot will enter private preview later this month. According to Xataka, citing CNBC, fewer than 7% of more than 450 million commercial Office 365 licenses include the AI add-on.

Sources: Xataka, Tecnoblog, The Verge

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A 2024 study published in Scientific Reports and conducted by Shinnosuke Ikeda of Kanazawa University analyzed two online experiments with 1,925 Japanese participants. In moral dilemmas and economic choices, advice attributed to ChatGPT influenced decisions similarly to recommendations attributed to human experts in certain situations; people who were more insecure or had greater difficulty making decisions were more susceptible to AI’s advice.

In an interview with g1, Cleber Zanchettin, a professor at the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), said that delegating personal decisions to AI gives it more data for potentially more convincing personalization, which can increase dependence and shape preferences. He also warned of possible bias in shopping recommendations, which are based on online content, and recommended using chatbots to organize information, compare alternatives, and weigh pros and cons while keeping the final decision with the user.

Sources: g1

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At Meta Connect, smart glasses featured prominently in demonstrations and were worn by staff and influencers, according to TechCrunch. Among the products shown were unreleased audio-only glasses without a camera and with six microphones; Meta says they will be able to play music, handle calls and integrate with Muse, although that integration is not yet available to the public. The agent will be able to perform tasks through voice commands, such as sending emails and reciting to-do lists, but the demonstration showed that it can become confused when the user talks to someone else at the same time.

Meta also let TechCrunch test audio glasses for people with hearing impairment. A member of Meta’s research team said the product has been in development for about five years and will sell for $150, while many hearing aids can cost as much as $1,600. The glasses offer focused amplification, aimed at the person in front of the user, or omnidirectional amplification for sounds around them.

Sources: TechCrunch

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Meta opened requests for early access to new features in its Muse AI app. To join the list, interested users must send Muse a specific request, shared by the company on X, saying they want to participate in the program.

Features presented by Meta include a digital Muse avatar for video calls, more shopping partnerships and connectors, and an expansion of the Mac app, which will soon be able to use the computer to complete tasks. The company also said Muse will come to Meta’s AI glasses, allowing users to interact with the agent by voice command after saying a wake word.

Sources: TechCrunch

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Qualcomm presented Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2, its first premium audio platform designed around so-called Personal AI. It is not a finished product, but a foundation for manufacturers to build wireless earbuds, over-ear models, open-ear devices, audio glasses and other multimodal formats. The company says the system combines sound processing, connectivity, sensors and on-device AI to interpret a user’s context and let agents perform tasks such as checking flight changes, finding a route or summarizing a meeting. In a concept developed with Cleer, a camera can also provide visual information about monuments, plants or menus.

The platform includes low-power Wi-Fi 6E to reduce reliance on a phone when connecting to cloud services. Qualcomm says Elite Gen 2 reaches 128 GOPS of AI processing, versus 64 GOPS for Snapdragon S7 Gen 1, and announces up to 40% lower power use in a specific connected Wi-Fi idle scenario; that result still comes from a design simulation pending validation.

Sources: Xataka

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According to TechCrunch, Meta’s personal AI agent Muse was reportedly outpacing ChatGPT’s early numbers. The publication says the system is also headed for smart glasses and a small Tamagotchi-style device, highlighting Meta’s strategy to bring AI to consumers and into daily use.

The Equity podcast episode also discussed Anthropic’s release of Opus 5.5, followed 90 minutes later by updates to OpenAI’s GPT-6 models. Other topics included a16z’s new school for aspiring founders, Oura’s $2.2 billion IPO and Ema’s $77 million raise to sell teams of AI agents that automate human resources, IT and finance workflows.

Sources: TechCrunch

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Two cryptanalysts say they decoded Enigma messages that had remained unsolved since World War II with help from large language models. Carter Leffen used OpenAI’s Astra to research archives, simulate the Enigma machine and recover the plaintext of a message that had puzzled researchers since 2005; Frode Weirerud, a retired engineer who runs the Crypto Cellar website, validated the solution. Jack Willis also said he decoded another message using Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5, guided by the known signature of an officer.

Weirerud says seven Enigma messages remain undecoded, along with another whose plaintext is known but whose code has not been broken. He said Astra achieved in two days what would take a human researcher weeks or months, although he still does not know how the model found references to files from a private collection.

Sources: TechCrunch

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Meta has intensified promotion of Muse, its AI app, after presenting it at the company’s annual developer conference. According to the latest Sensor Tower estimates, cited by TechCrunch, the app has surpassed 3.4 million downloads; other market intelligence firms put the total between 2.3 million and 4.3 million. Muse is available only in the U.S. and Canada and has led those markets’ app stores since September.

The company is promoting the app to Facebook and Instagram users, as well as advertising on networks including Reddit, TikTok and YouTube. Sensor Tower says Muse ads accounted for 6% of ad impressions from launch through September 19, suggesting that its growth does not depend only on Meta’s campaign. At the conference, Meta announced upcoming features including video chat with the Muse avatar, computer use on Mac, a dedicated email address, more partners and integrations with smart glasses.

Sources: TechCrunch

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According to TechCrunch, Meta’s personal AI agent Muse is reportedly outpacing ChatGPT’s early numbers. The outlet reports that the agent is headed for smart glasses and a small Tamagotchi-style device.

On TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, the hosts discussed Meta’s consumer AI strategy and its possible implications for startups building products on top of the technology, as well as which AI tools could become part of people’s daily lives.

Sources: TechCrunch

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Microsoft has stopped blocking the term “Microslop” on Copilot’s Discord server, Tecnoblog reported. The block was introduced in March, or shortly before then, as a temporary antispam measure, but users began using variations of the word and some accounts were restricted.

According to Windows Latest, a recent check found more than 200 mentions of the term in recent weeks, indicating that the restriction was quietly removed some time ago. It is unclear why Microsoft changed course; Tecnoblog says the company may have concluded that fighting this kind of provocation was counterproductive.

Sources: Tecnoblog

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A Verge test of Apple Intelligence for Home, Gemini for Home, and Ring’s AI features found that all three platforms significantly improved camera alerts. Instead of only reporting motion, they can describe what happened in text, helping users decide whether to act; the test also examined cross-camera search, unusual events, and automations triggered by what a camera sees.

The site mainly tested doorbells: the $249.99 Ring Wired Doorbell Pro, the $199.99 Google Nest Doorbell 2K, and the $99 Aqara Doorbell Camera G400, which supports HomeKit Secure Video. Apple Intelligence for Home arrived with iOS 27, but The Verge highlights that Apple charges up to three times more than its competitors: plans start at $9.99 a month for one camera and reach $59.99 for up to five cameras. The test concludes that AI’s greatest potential is identifying what actually matters and guiding actions in the home, rather than merely describing images.

Sources: The Verge

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Google has launched an update to Gemini 3.8 Live that lets users talk with the model while an animated avatar responds in real time, with lip-syncing and different facial expressions. The company says Live Avatar can switch among its 97 supported languages without reducing video fidelity or causing visual drift, and can display information on screen during a conversation.

Customers can choose from preset avatars or create their own. Google says the feature’s output includes an invisible SynthID watermark and safeguards to “respect identity.” Live Avatar is currently available only to Gemini Enterprise customers.

Sources: The Verge

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Meta announced two tools for creating games with AI prompts: Horizon Create, a mobile app, and Horizon Studio, a browser tool with more granular controls. The products will enter early access, and interested users can join a waitlist. The company says both can create 2D and 3D mobile games with progression systems, balanced difficulty, art direction and multiplayer, while allowing creators to edit the generated elements.

Meta also plans to recommend games published with the tools on Facebook and Instagram, where they can be played without downloading another app or leaving the platform. The company says it will give more reach to games that are engaging, stable and culturally relevant. The announcement follows Horizon’s shift from its original focus as a virtual-reality app toward mobile, while Roblox is also expanding its AI-powered creation tools.

Sources: The Verge

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Meta announced Muse Charm, a keychain-sized device that brings its Muse AI agent, voice and real-time avatar together. The device will have a 2-inch OLED screen, a fingerprint sensor, cameras, speakers, microphones, 5G connectivity and a USB-C port, according to Bloomberg reports cited by Xataka and The Verge. The avatar can be customized and, according to Bloomberg, different Charms will be able to recognize and interact with one another.

Mark Zuckerberg said the product should be ready to ship in December, although Meta has not disclosed a price or determined carrier fees for 5G access. Muse will also be integrated into Meta’s smart glasses in the coming months, enabling tasks such as logging meals, guiding workouts and booking appointments. Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth told Bloomberg that more people will likely use Muse through their phones and glasses than through a dedicated device.

Sources: The Verge, TechCrunch, Ars Technica, Xataka, Tecnoblog

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