Welcome to M5BMachine 5-Minute Briefing

“We assess a lot of AI chatbots at Common Sense Media, and they all have risks, but Grok is among the worst we’ve seen,” Robbie Torney of Common Sense Media said.

The 12-year-old firm raised $360,360,360 for its fifth fund. And there's a reason for that number.

More than 450 tech workers from companies like Google, Meta, OpenAI, Amazon, and Salesforce have signed a letter urging their CEOs to call the White House and demand ICE leave our cities.

Register now to save up to $680 on your TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 pass and get a +1 ticket at 50% off. Offer ends this Friday, January 30.

Register now to save up to $680 on your TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 pass and get a +1 ticket at 50% off. Offer ends this Friday, January 30.

The nozzle is just the beginning – what company founder Sunny Sethi calls "the muscle on the ground.”

Information from the conservative-leaning, AI-generated encyclopedia developed by Elon Musk’s xAI is beginning to appear in answers from ChatGPT.

Some of the major players in science fiction and pop culture are taking firmer stances against generative AI.

We’re about to get our first real look at the results of the recently announced AI partnership between Apple and Google.

There were times at this week’s meeting of the World Economic Forum when Davos seemed transformed into a high-powered tech conference.

Sparkli said that education systems often fall behind in teaching modern concepts. The company wants to teach kids about topics like skills design, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship by creating an AI-powered learning "expedition."

It’s getting hard to tell which AI labs. are actually trying to make money. We created a rating system to help sort it out.

The new feature lets you insert yourself into a meme in Google Photos.

Meta will developed new versions of AI characters that will give age-appropriate responses

Meta will developed new versions of AI characters that will give age-appropriate responses.

Sam Altman is set for his first India visit in nearly a year.

OpenAI has reportedly appointed Barret Zoph to lead its push into enterprise just a week after Zoph rejoined the company.

The five year-old-startup raised a $100 million round led by Index Ventures.

Google now offers a way for college-bound students to take free SAT practice exams with the help of Gemini.

Google has hired the CEO and top top behind voice AI startup Hume AI, signaling that voice is increasingly becoming the preferred interface over screens.

Since 2024, Anthropic's performance optimization team has given job seekers a take-home test to make sure they know their stuff — but as AI coding tools have gotten better, the test has had to change a lot to stay ahead of AI-assisted cheating.

Now available in the US and Canada, Spotify's AI-powered Prompted Playlists let users describe what they want to hear using natural language commands.

Should this wearable materialize, it could be released as early as 2027, according to a report on the device.

From leadership changes at legacy semiconductor companies to wishy washy policy around chip exports, a lot happened last year.