TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch

1. Attempting democracy: More than 10,000 people gathered in New York City on Presidents' Day to protest the Trump administration, and a common theme throughout was mistrust of and frustration with Elon Musk and his DOGE team as they slash government agencies. Read More

2. More Grok: xAI last night released its latest flagship AI model, Grok 3, and unveiled new features for Grok's iOS and web apps. The new model can analyze images, answer complex questions, powers features on X, and even has a "reasoning" mode. Read More

3. The next Nextdoor: TC's Connie Loizos sat down with Nextdoor's founder and CEO Nirav Tolia about how the company plans to use AI and its renewed focus on community to reinvigorate stalled growth. Read More

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Morning must-reads

Image Credits: Getty Images AI Generator

🤖 Find your fit: AI models are cranking out faster than you can say, "Hold my beer." If you're feeling a little confused, Charles Rollet has you covered with a handy guide of the most advanced AI models released since 2024, how to use them, and what they're for. Read More

📣 There goes caution: The New York Times has greenlit the use of AI tools for its product and editorial teams. It's allowing employees to use an internal summarization tool called Echo, GitHub Copilot, Google's Vertex AI, NotebookLM, and more. Read More

✈️ The Trump admin has fired probationary workers across federal agencies, including the FAA, which is particularly jarring given the handful of airplane crashes that have occurred since late January. Read More

🌓 Getting hormonal: Imbalances in female hormones are finally getting the attention they deserve, and riding that wave is Level Zero Health, which banked an oversubscribed $6.9 million pre-seed for its continuous hormone monitoring device. Read More

🌟 The Midas Hightouch: Hightouch, a platform that lets sales, marketing, and customer service teams synchronize data warehouses, has raised $80 million in funding at a $1.2 billion valuation. It does more than use APIs to merge data, though. AI agents are also involved. Read More

Around the web

🤑 Post-breakup glow up: OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever is raising more than $1 billion for his startup Safe Superintelligence, reports Bloomberg. The round, which is being led by Greenoaks Capital Partners, would value the startup at over $30 billion. Read More

🥊 Under pressure: OpenAI might grant special voting rights to its nonprofit board to preserve the power of its directors, reports The Financial Times. The move is designed to fend off Elon Musk's unsolicited $97.4 billion takeover bid. Read More

🚸 The death of kid safety: The Guardian explores how the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) died in the House despite sailing through the Senate with a 91-to-3 vote in July. It was seen as a chance to check big tech, and many lawmakers aren't giving up the fight. Read More

Before you go

Legal docs are boring, which is why startups are flocking to generative AI to help target the complex, jargony material. Luminance is the latest such startup to land funds — $75 million to be exact, one of the largest rounds raised by a legal AI company in the U.K. and Europe. Read More