Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

Ford rolled out an AI assistant this week that can monitor and analyze millions of data points to help its Ford Pro commercial customers boost their bottom line. The bet, and one that most other automakers are making, is that there’s money to be made in software. Ford Pro AI debuted at Work Truck Week in Indianapolis and is now available to all of its U.S.-based Pro telematics subscribers. The AI assistant is included in the subscription. Ford doesn’t disclose how many U.S. subscribers it has; it has more than 840,000 global subscribers. Ford Pro, which generated $66.3 billion in…

Zendesk is acquiring Forethought, a company that builds software to automate customer service interactions, the companies announced on Wednesday. The deal is expected to close by the end of March. While AI agents, particularly for customer service, may be all the rage now, Forethought was years ahead of its time. In fact, it was the 2018 winner of TechCrunch Battlefield, our iconic startup pitch competition. For context, ChatGPT didn’t launch until late 2022. Following its Battlefield win, Forethought landed marquee customers like Upwork, Grammarly, Airtable, and Datadog, it said, and by 2025 was supporting more than a billion monthly customer…

Last week, Netflix announced the acquisition of InterPositive, an AI company co-founded by Ben Affleck that helps filmmakers edit footage in post-production. This deal could be worth up to $600 million, according to Bloomberg, potentially ranking it among the streaming giant’s largest acquisitions ever. The most Netflix has ever paid for a single acquisition was approximately $700 million for the Roald Dahl Story Company.  While Netflix has not publicly confirmed the details, sources tell Bloomberg that the actual cash payment may be lower, with the owners of InterPositive eligible for additional payouts tied to specific performance targets.  InterPositive makes tools…

Lovable crossed $400 million in annual recurring revenue in February, the Stockholm company confirmed to TechCrunch. But it declined to say whether it is still projecting to reach $1 billion ARR by year’s end, saying its focus is on “helping builders scale their impact with our platform.” Alongside Cursor, Mercor, and others, Lovable is part of a wave of tools that make it easier to create websites and apps using natural language, a practice known as vibe coding. This initially resonated with individuals and startups, but the three-year-old company has been pushing hard to secure enterprise clients, which already include…

A woman with cancer that spread to her liver is getting a second chance at life after receiving a partial liver transplant from a living donor.Amy Piccioli told “Good Morning America” doctors have told her she currently has no evidence of the disease three months after she underwent transplant surgery at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago.”I’m just looking forward to living my life again without cancer being at the forefront of my mind,” she said.Piccioli, a mom of three, was diagnosed with Stage 4 colorectal cancer in May 2024. At the time, she said she had visited an emergency room near…

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The ride-sharing company Lyft will ensure the rights of blind and other disabled passengers across the country to travel with their service animals under a settlement announced in Minnesota on Wednesday.College student Tori Andres turned to the Minnesota Department of Human Rights after several Lyft drivers refused to let her service dog, Alfred, ride along with her. The agency investigated and determined that the company was violating the state’s Human Rights Act. Both sides then negotiated a settlement that includes changes in driver training, and updates to the Lyft app that will make the agreement…

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. underwent surgery Tuesday for an injured rotator cuff. The 72-year-old is expected to return to work Monday, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, although doctors say recovery can be slow and painful.The key to an optimal recovery is a gradual return to activity, including wearing a sling after the surgery and physical therapy.The rotator cuff, a group of muscles and tendons that surround the shoulder joint, is used for a whole range of motion such as raising your arm, said Dr. Gus Mazzocca, medical director of Mass General…

Harvey’s CEO Winston Weinberg thinks the $1 trillion legal market is too big and too fragmented for any one software company to sweep it. So the $8 billion legal-tech startup is trying a different play: bankroll whatever comes next. Loading audio narration… Harvey said Wednesday that it will begin investing in young legal-tech startups, partnering with venture capitalist Zach Posner’s The LegalTech Fund to scout and back the next wave of tools for law firms and in-house legal teams.Speaking at the Legalweek conference, Weinberg said the pace of change in AI means there’s still room for new category leaders to…

When Amazon announced a $50 billion investment and sweeping cloud partnership with OpenAI recently, a question surfaced inside the cloud giant: What does this mean for Anthropic?Amazon is one of Anthropic’s biggest investors, and has a deep cloud partnership with the startup. OpenAI and Anthropic are arch enemies, so there are potential tensions and conflicts from Amazon working so closely with both AI labs.The tech giant addressed some of this in internal talking points it prepared recently for sales and marketing teams at Amazon. Business Insider reviewed a copy of the guidelines.The document is the latest example of how intertwined…

Vibe-coding sensation Replit has hit another funding milestone. The company announced Wednesday that it raised a $400 million Series D at a $9 billion valuation, led by previous investor Georgian Partners. Other participating investors include G Squared, Prysm Capital, Coatue, Andreessen Horowitz, Craft Ventures, Y Combinator, Accenture Ventures, Okta Ventures, and Databricks Ventures. Founder and CEO Amjad Masad also said in a post on X that backers include angel investors Shaquille O’Neal and Jared Leto. This follows the $3 billion valuation the startup hit in September, when it raised a $250 million round. At that time, Replit said it was…