Monday, 9 March 2026
Welcome to today's roundup of the most interesting developments in AI and technology.
Top Stories
Owner of ICE detention facility sees big opportunity in AI man camps
AI data center developers are increasingly relying on a style of camp popularized as housing for men working in remote oil fields.
Read moreA roadmap for AI, if anyone will listen
The Pro-Human Declaration was finalized before last week's Pentagon-Anthropic standoff, but the collision of the two events wasn’t lost on anyone involved.
Read moreGoogle just gave Sundar Pichai a $692M pay package
Most of it is tied to performance, including new stock incentives linked to Waymo and Wing, its drone delivery venture.
Read moreOpenAI hardware exec Caitlin Kalinowski quits in response to Pentagon deal
Hardware executive Caitlin Kalinowski announced today that in response to OpenAI's controversial agreement with the Department of Defense, she’s resigned from her role leading the company's robotics team.
Read moreMicrosoft, Google, Amazon say Anthropic Claude remains available to non-defense customers
Trump's Department of War feud with Anthropic won't impact other companies that are using Claude via Microsoft and Google products.
Read moreIndustry
Anthropic's Claude found 22 vulnerabilities in Firefox over two weeks
In a recent security partnership with Mozilla, Anthropic found 22 separate vulnerabilities in Firefox — 14 of them classified as "high-severity."
Read moreClaude's consumer growth surge continues after Pentagon deal debacle
Claude's app is now seeing more new installs than ChatGPT and is growing its daily active users.
Read moreAfter Europe, WhatsApp will let rival AI companies offer chatbots in Brazil
Meta is now allowing rival AI companies to provide their chatbots on WhatsApp to Brazilian users for a fee, a day after the company confirmed a similar decision for users in Europe.
Read moreScaling intelligent automation without breaking live workflows
Scaling intelligent automation without disruption demands a focus on architectural elasticity, not just deploying more bots. At the Intelligent Automation Conference, industry leaders gathered to dissect why many automation initiatives stall after pilot phases. Speaking alongside representatives fro
Read moreAnthropic to challenge DOD's supply-chain label in court
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said he plans to challenge the Department of Defense's designation of the AI firm as a supply-chain risk. He claims most Anthropic customers are unaffected by the label.
Read moreResearch & Products
Grammarly’s ‘expert review’ is just missing the actual experts
A recently-added feature in Grammarly purports to improve users’ writing with help from the world's great writers and thinkers — and some tech journalists, too.
Read moreOpenAI delays ChatGPT’s ‘adult mode’ again
The feature, which will give verified adult users access to erotica and other adult content, had already been delayed from December.
Read moreAnthropic's Pentagon deal is a cautionary tale for startups chasing federal contracts
The Pentagon has officially designated Anthropic a supply-chain risk after the two failed to agree on how much control the military should have over its AI models, including its use in autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance. As Anthropic’s $200 million contract fell apart, the DoD turned
Read moreAnthropic vs. the Pentagon, the SaaSpocalypse, and why competitions is good, actually
The Pentagon has officially designated Anthropic a supply-chain risk after the two failed to agree on how much control the military should have over its AI models, including its use in autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance. As Anthropic’s $200 million contract fell apart, the DoD turned
Read moreThe firm that never forgets: Rowspace launches with $50M to make AI for private equity actually work
Private equity runs on judgment–and judgment, it turns out, is extraordinarily hard to scale. Decades of deal memos, underwriting models, partner notes, and portfolio data are scattered across systems that were never designed to communicate with each other. Every time a new deal crosses a firm’s des
Read morePolicy & Ethics
Ring's Jamie Siminoff has been trying to calm privacy fears since the Super Bowl, but his answers may not help
The facial recognition question is where things get more tangled.
Read moreWill the Pentagon’s Anthropic controversy scare startups away from defense work?
On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, we discussed what the controversy means for other startups seeking to work with the federal government.
Read moreCity Detect, which uses AI to help cities stay safe and clean, raises $13M Series A
City Detect, a company that helps local governments prevent urban decay, is in at least 17 cities so far, including Dallas and Miami.
Read more