Techmeme
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An eight-month study at a US tech company finds AI tools didn't reduce work but intensified it, as employees worked faster and took on a broader range of tasks (Harvard Business Review)
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OpenAI says ads in ChatGPT are not eligible to appear near "sensitive or regulated topics like health, mental health or politics" (Madison Mills/Axios)
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OpenAI says it has started testing ads in ChatGPT in the US for logged-in adult users on the Free and Go tiers and that the ads do not change ChatGPT answers (OpenAI)
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Lyft launches teen accounts in the US more than two years after Uber, with safety features such as PIN verification, real-time tracking, and audio recordings (Samantha Subin/CNBC)
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Neara, which builds digital twins of critical infrastructure to help prepare for disasters, raised a AU$90M Series D, a source says at a AU$1.1B valuation (Rhiannon Hoyle/Wall Street Journal)
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Sources: Alphabet has attracted more than $100B of orders for a bond sale that's expected to be about $15B (Brian W Smith/Bloomberg)
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Beast Industries, the entertainment conglomerate founded by MrBeast and last valued at $5.2B, acquires Step Mobile, a teen-focused banking app (Valida Pau/The Information)
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Autodesk sues Google for allegedly infringing its Flow trademark as the name of Google's AI filmmaking tool (Jonathan Stempel/Reuters)
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Monday.com's stock plunges 20%+ after the project management software company issued weak Q1 guidance, as it battles rising pressure from agentic AI tools (Samantha Subin/CNBC)
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Sources: Alphabet plans to sell a rare 100-year sterling bond, as Big Tech companies borrow more to fund their capex growth; IBM sold a 100-year bond in 1996 (Financial Times)
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Workday announces CEO Carl Eschenbach is stepping down and will be replaced by the company's co-founder, Aneel Bhusri, effective immediately; WDAY drops 6%+ (Ashley Capoot/CNBC)
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Databricks raised $5B in equity financing and $2B in debt at a $134B valuation and says its annualized revenue crossed $5.4B for the January quarter, up 65% YoY (Jordan Novet/CNBC)
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EU officials and tech executives inaugurate a €2.5B chips research hub in Belgium; ASML and Imec emphasized that the US is dependent on European chip tech (Pieter Haeck/Politico)
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Gather AI, which builds "curious" AI for drones and cameras to autonomously monitor warehouses, raised a $40M Series B, taking its total funding to $74M (Julie Bort/TechCrunch)
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Source: Apollo nears a ~$3.4B loan deal to a Valor-led investment vehicle to buy Nvidia chips for leasing to xAI; through fall 2025, xAI was burning $1B+/month (Miles Kruppa/The Information)