Amazon is starting to test a new AI shopping agent, a feature it calls “Buy for Me,” with a subset users, the company announced in a blog post Thursday.
If Amazon doesn’t sell something that users are searching for, the Buy for Me feature will display products to users that other websites are selling. Then, users can select and request to purchase one of these products without ever leaving the Amazon Shopping app.
Amazon is the latest company to unveil an AI shopping agent, joining firms such as OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity, which have all showcased similar agents that can visit websites and help users make purchases. Amazon is already most people’s go-to platform for anything they’d want to purchase on the internet, but Buy for Me could allow Amazon to capture even more e-commerce business than it does today.
Behind the scenes, Amazon’s AI shopping agent will visit an external website, select a product that a user requested, and fill out the user’s name, shipping address, and payment details in order to purchase it, according to Amazon.
Amazon says the new agentic shopping feature is powered by its Amazon Nova AI models, in addition to Anthropic’s Claude. One of those models could be Nova Act, an AI agent Amazon unveiled earlier this week that can use websites autonomously.
Amazon said in the aforementioned blog post that Buy for Me uses encryption to “securely” insert your billing information on third-party sites, such that Amazon can’t see what you’re ordering from outside its platform. This is a unique approach compared to OpenAI and Google’s agents, which require humans to fill out credit card information themselves, as well as Perplexity’s AI agent, which has a prepaid debit card to make purchases.
Handing your credit card information over to AI, which is prone to hallucinations and mistakes, may give some users serious pause. In TechCrunch’s experience, AI shopping agents often take a long time to process requests, and often get stuck somewhere along the line.
Amazon is basically asking users to trust that its agent won’t accidentally purchase 1,000 pairs of socks instead of 10, for example. It’s also asking that they accept less control over the shopping experience. If a customer needs to return or exchange an order, Buy for Me will direct them to the digital storefront from which the AI agent made the purchase.
We’ll soon see how many people are willing to take the plunge.
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A federal judge ruled on Thursday that a lawsuit attempting to stop the Department of Government Efficiency from obtaining records on millions of Americans may proceed.
In conjunction with privacy watchdog the Electronic Frontier Foundation and two labor unions, more than 100 current and former federal employees sued DOGE, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and Elon Musk in February.
The government filed a motion to dismiss, but on Thursday the judge denied that motion.
The suit seeks to block OPM from disclosing records to DOGE as well as agents of DOGE. It also wants any information already shared to be returned. This ruling doesn’t mean the lawsuit itself will result in victory for the plaintiffs, but it does allow them to carry on.
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Amazon is introducing a new “Recaps” feature for Kindle users to help them recall plot points and character arcs before picking up the latest book in a series. While the company’s press release for the new feature doesn’t mention AI, Amazon confirmed to TechCrunch that recaps are AI-generated.
“We use technology, including GenAI and Amazon moderators, to create short recaps of books that accurately reflect book content,” Amazon spokesperson Ale Iraheta said in an emailed statement.
Users have taken to Reddit to share their concerns about the use of AI for the feature, with some questioning how accurate recaps will be. Although the company has said that it ensures recaps accurately reflect content, TechCrunch has asked for more information about the process.
Kindle device users in the United States can now view short recaps for books they’ve either purchased or borrowed for thousands of best-selling English-language e-books in series. Amazon plans to bring the recaps feature to the Kindle app for iOS soon.
To access recaps, users need to be on the latest Kindle software. Users can check if a series has a recap by looking for the “View Recaps” button on the series page in their Kindle Library or through the “View Recaps” option within the series grouping three-dot menu.
Before you can read the recap, you will be warned that it includes spoilers about major plot points and characters. Once you acknowledge this, you will be taken to the recap.
“By adding a new level of convenience to series reading, the Recaps feature enables readers to dive deeper into complex worlds and characters without losing the joy of discovery, all while ensuring an uninterrupted reading experience across every genre,” Amazon wrote in the blog post.
The company says recaps are available for all sorts of series, from epic fantasy series to mystery thrillers, including trending titles and longtime favorites.
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Grace, an insurance company for luxury goods, announced on Wednesday a $6.4 million (€5.9 million) seed round led by FinTech Collective and Speedinvest.
An insurance company for luxury goods, Grace works with luxury brands to protect purchased consumer goods. If an item is stolen or damaged, a consumer can create a claim through the Grace app. For the brand, the Grace app also provides fraud detection, claim processing, and logistic coordination.
The company confirmed that it is working with at least one major luxury brand in Europe, though it declined to share the name.
Co-founder and president Lou Dana said that she and her co-founders — Quentin Roy, CEO, and Martin Lenweiter, Grace’s CTO — decided to launch this company after seeing how unprotected many luxury goods still are, especially when people are traveling abroad.
“There was clearly a massive gap between the service levels luxury brands promise and what happens post-purchase when something goes wrong,” Dana said.
The number of stolen luxury goods has just about tripled in the past few years, and it’s becoming costly for fashion houses to keep up. Grace says it is already working with Chubb, a world leader in insurance, to underwrite and secure its services.
But convincing luxury houses to adopt new technology hasn’t always been the easiest of tasks to complete. Roy said that brands have struggled to control what happens to their products after a sale, especially when it goes wrong. “We weren’t just offering protection,” Roy said about the company’s pitch. “We were helping elevate their brand.”
There are other types of insurance companies for consumer goods, such as Zing Cover, which also provides specialist insurance for luxury goods. Roy said that Grace doesn’t compete with just one company, as it stands at the intersection of embedded insurance, luxury services, and post-purchase protection. Kima, Bpifrance, and Firstminute Capital all participated in the round.
Dana said the fresh capital would be used to help the company scale across Europe and hire more people in product engineering. It hopes to cover more than 200,000 luxury items by the end of this year.
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Generative AI has vastly expanded the toolkit available to hackers and other bad actors. It’s now possible to do everything from deepfaking a CEO to creating fake receipts.
OpenAI, the biggest generative AI startup of them all, knows this better than anyone. And it has just invested in another AI startup that helps companies defend against these kinds of attacks.
New York-based Adaptive Security has raised a $43 million Series A co-led by OpenAI’s startup fund and Andreessen Horowitz, it announced Wednesday. This marks OpenAI’s first investment in a cybersecurity startup, OpenAI confirmed to TechCrunch.
Adaptive Security simulates AI-generated “hacks” to train employees to spot these threats. You might pick up the phone to listen to the voice of your CTO asking for a verification code. That wouldn’t be your actual CTO, but a spoof generated by Adaptive Security.
Adaptive Security’s platform doesn’t just spoof phone calls: It also covers texts and emails, while scoring which parts of a company might be most vulnerable and training staff to spot the risks.
The startup focuses on hacks that require a human employee to do something they’re not supposed to, like click on a bad link. These kinds of “social engineering” hacks, while basic, have led to huge losses — think of Axie Infinity, which lost over $600 million due to a fake job offer for one of its developers in 2022.
AI tools have made social engineering hacks easier than ever, co-founder and CEO Brian Long told TechCrunch. Launched in 2023, Adaptive now has over 100 customers, with Long saying positive feedback from them helped attract OpenAI to the cap table.
It doesn’t hurt that Long is a veteran entrepreneur with two previous successes: mobile ad startup TapCommerce, which he sold to Twitter in 2014 (reportedly for over $100 million) and ad-tech firm Attentive, which was last valued at over $10 billion in 2021 according to one of its investors.
Long told TechCrunch that Adaptive Security will use its latest funding mostly on hiring engineers to build out its product and keep up in the AI “arms race” against bad actors.
Adaptive Security joins a long list of other cyber startups working on the boom in AI threats. Cyberhaven just raised $100 million at a $1 billion valuation to help stop staff from putting sensitive info in tools like ChatGPT, Forbes reported. There’s also Snyk, which partly credits the rise of insecure AI-generated code for helping push its ARR north of $300 million. And deepfake detection startup GetReal just raised $17.5 million last month.
As AI threats become more sophisticated, Long has one simple tip for company employees worried about getting their voice cloned by hackers. “Delete your voicemail,” he recommends.
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Semiconductor giants Intel and TSMC are reportedly teaming up.
The two firms are said to have reached a tentative agreement to create a joint venture that will operate Intel’s chipmaking facilities, according to The Information. TSMC will have a 20% stake in the new venture.
Instead of funding its stake with capital, TSMC will share some of its chipmaking practices with Intel employees and train them, added The Information.
The Trump administration reportedly kindled the discussions in an effort to boost Intel’s turnaround efforts. Intel executives are worried about mass layoffs.
The development comes less than a month after investor and entrepreneur Lip-Bu Tan was appointed CEO of Intel. At the time, it was reported that Tan was looking to make sweeping changes at the company.
TSMC declined to comment. TechCrunch reached out to Intel for comment.
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