TechCrunch Top 3

Google Vids now lets you star in your own AI videos: Google is adding personalized AI avatars to Vids that let users create videos starring a digital version of themselves, alongside Gemini Omni-powered tools for generating and editing videos from prompts and reference images. Read More

Uber's $14.8B Delivery Hero deal would nearly double its global footprint: Uber has agreed to acquire Delivery Hero in a $14.8 billion all-stock deal that would nearly double the company’s global footprint and create one of the world’s largest food-delivery platforms outside China. Read More

Oil giant BP shutters its corporate venture arm after 20 years: BP Ventures is shutting down, ending a nearly 20-year run that was marked by reportedly lackluster returns. Read More

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Afternoon Must-Reads

Founders Fund hires former OpenAI exec Ryan Beiermeister (and not because of her 'Mafia' skills): Ryan Beiermeister, who demonstrated cool analysis in the Founders Fund YouTube series "Mafia," has joined the firm as a partner. Read More

Yes, you can now order DoorDash from the command line: DoorDash is opening a limited beta of dd-cli, a command-line tool that lets developers and AI agents search stores, build carts, and place orders from the terminal, marking another step toward software designed for AI agents instead of just humans. Read More

Moonshot's upcoming Kimi 3 is expected to close the gap with Anthropic's Opus 4.8: The FT reports Kimi K3 will be the largest open AI model from China, with a parameter count between 2 trillion and 3 trillion. Read More

How a former DeepMind researcher raised at a $300M pre-seed valuation before launching a product: Drawing on more than a decade spent helping build some of the world's most influential AI systems, including research that later informed the development of ChatGPT, Andrew Dai explains why he believes visual AI is one of the next major frontiers in artificial intelligence. Read More

Why is OpenAI selling a ChatGPT basketball?: You may have heard that OpenAI released its first piece of hardware this week. You may not have heard about the ChatGPT basketball. Read More

Last but Not Least

AI-powered travel agency Fora hits unicorn status, raises $60M: Travel agency Fora announced a $60 million Series D round led by Forerunner and Tactile Ventures, valuing the company at $1 billion. Read More