Archive
Category: Quick Bites
Workgrounds Raises $2.6 Million to Streamline Hotel Room Block Management With AI
Serial entrepreneurs Nikhil Sethi and Garrett Ullom have founded an AI startup to improve hotel room bookings. Called Workgrounds, it promises to automate the manual processes surrounding corporate group travel with its “end-to-end stack.” The company has raised $2.6 million in pre-seed funding to accelerate its mission, with participation from Oceans Ventures, Hannah Grey, Volo […]
Foursquare City Guide Shutting Down on Dec. 15; Swarm Will Stay Active
A decade after splitting its city guide feature from its social check-in service, Foursquare is streamlining further. The company will sunset the City Guide app on December 15, with the web version following in early 2025. Meanwhile, the popular Swarm check-in app will stay active, potentially receiving an update to enhance the user experience. Much […]
Dropbox Acquires Nira, Hiten Shah’s Cloud Document Security Startup
Dropbox has acquired Nira for an undisclosed amount. The company buried the news in this week’s Dash for Business announcement, revealing that the startup’s technology is behind the AI-powered search app’s content governance capability. Founded in 2020 by Marie Prokopets and serial entrepreneur Hiten Shah (KISSmetrics, Crazy Egg, and Quick Sprout), Nira provides companies with […]
Sierra Gives Its AI Agents a Voice, Delivering Lifelike Customer Service Over the Phone
Everyone is racing to give AI agents a voice. On the same day Zendesk announced voice capabilities for its AI agents, Sierra revealed it is also adding voice to its customer service bots. “People are highly sensitive to the subtleties of a voice and the flow of a conversation,” Sierra’s co-founders Bret Taylor and Clay […]
Augie Launches Highlighter, an AI Tool That Captures the Best Moments from Long-Form Videos
Aug X Studios, creators of the AI-powered video platform Augie, have introduced Highlighter, a tool designed to help users effortlessly capture viral-worthy soundbites. Upload a long-form video and provide a prompt for what you’re looking for. Highlighter takes care of the rest—automatically extracting the most shareable moments for social media. This is the newest feature […]
AI Platform MindStudio Releases Self-Hosted Offering for the Enterprise
MindStudio, the enterprise-centric AI app development platform, has launched a new product called MindStudio for Enterprise, designed for companies that want more control over their infrastructure. This offering allows developers to take all the features available through the hosted SaaS platform and deploy them directly on the company’s on-premise or private cloud servers. In doing […]
Returning to VentureBeat as a Contributing Writer
Update: My tenure at VentureBeat ended on June 30, 2024. After a six-year absence, I’m proud to announce I’ll be freelancing for VentureBeat starting in April. But unlike my first stint in 2015 where I had a broad mandate for coverage, this time, I’m exclusively focusing on artificial intelligence. For the past few years, VentureBeat […]
UN Passes First Resolution Regulating AI Worldwide
The United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted the first global resolution on artificial intelligence. Countries are urged to ensure the technology doesn’t violate human rights, secures personal data and monitor AI for risks. A draft resolution was introduced last week by a coalition of member nations led by the U.S. The resolution’s passage makes it […]