Enterprises are facing a disturbing new question in the age of AI: What happens when agentic assistants go dark?
This became a very real scenario on Thursday, as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and SpaceXAI’s Grok near-simultaneously, and somewhat mysteriously, experienced significant, prolonged outages.
Beginning in the morning, Eastern time, several ChatGPT models went down over a roughly two hour period, Claude models over a four-hour span, and Grok models for a near three-and-a-half hour duration. All three companies acknowledged the “elevated” issues and applied fixes.
As users grumbled in forums and IT teams scrambled to get them back online, the incident revealed how hastily some organizations have adopted generative AI workflows without considering the potential, and inevitable, impact of widespread outages.
AI agents are increasingly taking over automated and wider-scale workflows, and enterprises could find themselves “uncomfortably exposed” when AI hits the brakes, said technology analyst and journalist Carmi Levy. The situation should “serve as a wakeup call to IT leaders who have largely ignored what it’ll cost them if these increasingly critical platforms suddenly go dark. The risk is no longer hypothetical.”
Hours-long outages impact core services
ChatGPT went down on the same day as OpenAI’s anticipated launch of GPT-6 Astra, the new frontier model that the company says approximates artificial general intelligence (AGI) and gets nearer to its goal of creating autonomous systems that outperform humans.
The OpenAI outage occurred around 11 a.m. ET on Thursday and impacted a slew of services, including search, file uploads, agents, GPTs, voice mode, image generation, ChatGPT work, Compliance API, Deep Research, ChatGPT Atlas, and other connectors and apps. In some cases, users were prevented from logging in, conversations failed to load, and the interface returned errors when attempting to send messages. OpenAI’s Codex services, including web, API, command line interface (CLI), and VS code extension, were also impacted.
OpenAI fixed the issue by 12:55 p.m. ET, and advised Codex remote control users to re-pair their mobile devices.
Claude began to go dark around 7:37 a.m. ET, with Anthropic acknowledging an “exhaustive list” of impacted models with elevated errors over the next few hours: Mythos and Fable 5.1 and 5, Sonnet 5, and Opus 5, 4.8, and 4.6.
The issue was resolved by 11:27 a.m. ET. The incident followed a roughly 27-minute outage just the day before, also due to elevated errors on requests in Sonnet 5.
Grok, meanwhile, began experiencing issues around 9:30 a.m. ET. Grok Web, Build, API, Office/Workspace plugins, Android, and X were all impacted. The services returned to “healthy” traffic at 1:08 p.m. ET.
“It’s a curious scenario for multiple different providers to experience outages at the same time,” noted Brian Jackson, a principal research director at Info-Tech Research Group. It could be related to a common infrastructure such as a content delivery network (CDN) layer, domain name system (DNS), or shared cloud infrastructure, he theorized.
A case for outage planning
Just a few months ago, the extent of AI use within the typical enterprise was limited to employees using chatbots to get answers to basic questions or to draft simple email messages, Levy noted. Large-scale AI platform outages, when they occurred, had relatively little impact on overall organizational productivity. “But things are changing, and quickly,” he said.
Organizations must now have a better understanding of the impact agentic AI has on day-to-day workflows, and the degree to which they disrupt employees’ ability to complete complex tasks once they’ve handed the reins over to automated, cloud-based tools, Levy noted.
In incidents like Thursday’s, employees may fall back on traditional manual workflows, such as updating spreadsheets or pulling reports together the old-fashioned way. But they might also realize that, after relying on AI agents to do so much work on their behalf, they’ve become too dependent on automation, and their “cognitive skills may not be as sharp as they once were,” Levy said.
The growing prevalence of agentic AI should prompt organizations to revisit their disaster recovery and business continuity plans and assess the productivity impact of potential service outages, he said. While cloud-based productivity platforms like Google Workplace and Microsoft 365 offer limited degrees of “offline mode” functionality using locally-stored data, and documents can be synchronized to hard drives in Dropbox or Google Docs for Desktop, agentic AI platforms offer up fewer offline workarounds, at least in their current form.
Organizations should document workflows in greater detail and scenario-plan what near-term recovery might look like in the event of an extended AI platform outage, Levy said. They also need better training to ensure employees maintain their manual skills over time and are equipped to press them into service in the event of a service outage, because the more enterprises lean on agents to complete critical tasks, “and pull humans out of the loop in the interest of productivity,” the less able employees will be to step back in during inevitable service interruptions, he pointed out.
“It is entirely possible for otherwise well-meaning organizations to be over-reliant on AI automation,” Levy said. “Too many organizations are about to learn some hard lessons about not having a backup plan in place.”
Info-Tech’s Jackson also recommends a modular architecture for LLMs; enterprises should view the model as a “commodity that can be hot-swapped with an alternative.” That might be another cloud service provider (which hopefully isn’t experiencing a concurrent outage) or a self-hosted option like an open-weights model.
“In a scenario like this, when your first choice provider might not be available, you have a fallback that can supply that same intelligence layer, even if it’s only a stopgap solution,” said Jackson.
The Builders Stage is returning to TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, bringing together founders, startup operators, and investors for practical conversations on what it takes to build and scale successful companies.
Hear from startup and venture leaders shaping the tech ecosystem, including Grant Lee, CEO and co-founder of Gamma; Leah Solivan, founder and general partner at Precedent.vc; Robby Stein, VP of Product at Google; and more. Through candid conversations and real-world case studies, speakers will share actionable insights on fundraising, hiring, go-to-market strategy, AI, and the operational decisions that fuel startup growth.
Join more than 10,000 founders, investors, startup operators, and technology leaders at Moscone Center in San Francisco on October 13-15. Register today and save before our next ticket price increase.
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Built for founders who are ready to scale
Building a startup is one thing. Building a company that can scale is another challenge entirely. The Builders Stage is one of six industry-focused stages at Disrupt 2026, dedicated to helping founders navigate the challenges of growth, from raising capital and hiring top talent to building go-to-market engines and preparing for the jump from seed to Series A.
Every session delivers practical strategies you can put to work immediately, plus opportunities to engage directly with speakers during live Q&A. Secure your pass to Disrupt 2026 today and save up to $330 before rates increase.
Without further ado, here’s your first look at the Builders Stage agenda, with more speakers and sessions to be announced as we get closer to the event.
Builders Stage agenda
How to Win When You’re Not Building AI
With Shan Shan, Investment Manager, Baillie Gifford; and Yuri Sagalov, Managing Director at General Catalyst
AI may dominate the world of venture, but many enduring companies won’t be those that sell AI models or agents. This session is for founders competing for attention in an AI-obsessed market. Panelists break down what actually matters now: efficient growth, retention, revenue quality, and disciplined execution, and why fundamentals, not hype, still build breakout businesses.
Nearly all AI founders have the same worry these days: What if OpenAI or Anthropic launches a product that competes with mine? Even strong products are at risk of becoming features of the larger players. This session explores where defensibility exists and what founders can do if they do face competition from rapidly evolving AI giants.
AI startups are scaling faster, and demanding more capital, than any generation before them. Jas Khaira, Global Head of Blackstone N1, shares what separates enduring companies from early momentum, how founders should think about capital as they scale, and what Blackstone looks for when backing the next generation of category-defining businesses.
Competing for AI Talent: Pay, Equity, and Retention
The growth of AI startups has made hiring and retention more difficult for every tech company. From competing for AI talent to navigating secondary sales, founders are rethinking the human infrastructure of their startups. As incentives and employee expectations rapidly evolve, this session explores how companies are adapting compensation, culture, and team-building strategies to attract and retain top talent in a fundamentally changed market.
Founders are increasingly expected to compete for capital before they even have a product. At the pre-seed stage, investors are betting on story, conviction, and founder-market fit. This session breaks down how to build credibility before revenue exists so investors will cut that first check.
From MVP to Billions of Users: How Product Decisions Must Change at Scale
The instincts that win when building your first minimum viable product can break you at a billion-user scale. In this fireside, Robby Stein shares how product decision-making changes when every update impacts billions of users. Hear how teams balance speed with trust and innovation with reliability at one of the world’s largest product organizations.
Hiring When AI Is a Co-Founder
With Josh Reeves, CEO and Co-founder, Gusto; more speakers to be announced
Early-stage companies are no longer just building with AI; they’re hiring it. As AI agents take on engineering, support, and operations, the definition of an early team is being rewritten. This session explores how founders decide what humans should own versus what gets delegated to AI, and how high-growth startups are building hybrid teams without losing speed, accountability, or culture.
AI isn’t just adding features, it’s forcing product teams to rethink how people search, discover, communicate, travel, and make decisions. Leaders from Reddit, Square and Uber discuss how they’re redesigning products used by millions, what users actually want from AI, and where product leaders should resist the temptation to automate everything.
The smartest founders today aren’t just building for IPOs; they’re also building with possible acquisitions in mind from day one. As exits shift and capital tightens, understanding M&A early has become a competitive advantage. This session breaks down how founders can create the possibility of such an option through product strategy and partnerships. It delves into how big-dollar startup outcomes actually happen, even for small companies.
Series A is getting harder, with VCs growing more demanding. For founders planning to raise in the next one to two years, this session breaks down what “fundable” will actually mean in 2027. Hear how top investors are redefining the metrics, teams, and traction that matter now, what outdated fundraising playbooks no longer work, and how companies can separate from the pack in the next funding cycle.
The 90-Day GTM: Why $0–$10M ARR Is the New Baseline (and How to Actually Get There)
With Ryan Meadows, Chief Revenue Officer, Lovable; and Tomasz Tunguz, General Partner and Founder, Theory Ventures; Ben Broca, Founder, Polsia
The definition of traction has changed. What once took years is now expected in months, and $0 to $10 million ARR is increasingly becoming the new early-stage baseline. This session breaks down how AI-enabled execution, faster distribution, and shifting investor expectations are compressing GTM timelines, and the tactical levers founders need in the first 90 days to accelerate revenue and stand out fast.
The Real Tokenmaxxing: How the Best AI Companies Navigate a Multi-Model World
With Mo Jomaa, Partner, Capital G; and Zuzanna Stamirowska, CEO and Co-founder, Pathway; more speakers to be announced
The frontier is moving faster than any single model can keep up with, and the teams building the most successful AI products are increasingly orchestrating across many models rather than betting on just one. This panel brings together founders and operators at the center of that shift to discuss how they evaluate new models, manage cost and reliability at scale, and architect products that can evolve as quickly as the underlying technology.
The AI conversation is shifting from what models can say to what they can actually do. Agents are navigating the open web and completing work, AI systems are taking on increasingly ambitious research, intelligent machines are beginning to operate beyond the screen, and a new infrastructure layer is emerging to make all of this possible at scale.
Greenfield Partners’ Shay Grinfeld sits down with founders building across these emerging areas to separate what’s real today from what’s coming next, and explore where the biggest new opportunities are taking shape. The conversation will culminate in the reveal of Greenfield Partners’ 2026 AI Disruptors 60, spotlighting the companies Greenfield and TechCrunch believe are pushing AI into new territory.
PMF Red Flags: How to Tell If You Really Have It
With Rajeev Dham, Managing Director, Sapphire Ventures; and Rahul Vohra, Founder and Head of Superhuman Mail; more speakers to be announced
In an AI hype cycle, product-market fit signals are easier to fake and harder to trust. Founders are mistaking early excitement, usage spikes, and pilot wins for durable traction. This session breaks down what false PMF actually looks like, how investors and operators separate real retention from hype-driven adoption, and the signals that indicate whether a company has true pull or just temporary momentum.
The Zero-to-1K Playbook: How to Get Your First 1,000 Customers Without a Marketing Budget
With Grant Lee, CEO and Co-founder, Gamma; Leah Solivan, Founder and General Partner, Precedent.vc; andElia Wallen, Founder and CEO, Engine
Early customer acquisition is not about marketing spend; it’s about founder-led distribution and relentless execution. Most startups at zero to one do not have budget, brand, or scale, only urgency and creativity. This session breaks down how founders are landing their first customers through community building, product-led growth, founder-led sales, strategic outbound, and word-of-mouth momentum.
Yes, It’s Hard to Be a Founder: An Honest Conversation
With Nell Daly, Co-founder and Managing Partner, Revenge Capital; David H. Rosmarin, Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School; and Jack Withinshaw, Co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer, Airspeeder
Company building is as psychologically demanding as it is strategic, and most founder narratives understate that reality. In this candid conversation, founders and mental performance experts unpack the hidden costs of high-growth environments, from burnout and decision fatigue to the identity strain of sustained pressure, and share the systems, habits, and mental frameworks that help leaders endure and perform at a high level.
So You’ve Got a Hit Product. How Does Your Company Do It Again?
Most startups stall out because they build a single great product instead of a repeatable multi-product engine. Join a venture capitalist and two founders as they reveal the precise operational playbook for capital allocation, systemizing internal innovation, and engineering a compounding “Second Act” before the core product’s growth curve flattens.
Hiring, Compensation and Culture in the Most Competitive Market Ever
With Matt Birnbaum, Founder, Wylder.co; and Atli Thorkelsson, VP, Talent Network, Redpoint Ventures; more speakers to be announced
No question about it, the growth of AI startups has made hiring and retention for all tech companies more difficult. From competing for AI talent to secondary sales, founders are rethinking the human infrastructure of their startups. As hiring, incentives, and employee expectations rapidly evolve, this session explores how companies are adapting compensation, culture, and team-building strategies to attract and retain top talent in a fundamentally changed startup environment.
Startups can go from zero to viral overnight, but sustaining that momentum is a completely different challenge. In this fireside, Zach Yadegari shares how Cal AI navigated rapid growth, product pressure, and the realities of building in a distribution-driven market. Hear the lessons behind turning breakout attention into durable retention and long-term company building.
The High-Conviction Filter: What We Learned From the Battlefield
With Alexa von Tobel, Inspired Capital; and Chi-Hua Chien, Co-founder and Managing Partner, Goodwater Capital; more speakers to be announced
What separates the breakout companies from the rest at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026? In this candid debrief, Startup Battlefield judges unpack the trends and founder qualities that stood out in real time, from shifting investor expectations to the narratives that resonated most this year. The conversation will also explore how startup storytelling is evolving and what happens after the spotlight, including the realities of maintaining momentum and surviving the critical 12 months after a major launch, funding round, or Startup Battlefield appearance.
What makes an investor say yes? In this audience-led Q&A, the Startup Battlefield finals judges take your toughest questions on what separates a fundable startup from the rest: team, traction, market opportunity, pitch delivery, red flags, and more. Come ready to ask and get candid answers straight from the investors making the decisions.
Join the conversations and make the connections at Disrupt
Qualcomm continues to tease its next Snapdragon debut with the Adreno Neural Fusion GPU.
The company says this chip utilizes AI-drive rendering tech, placing stronger resolution and frame generation directly into the graphics pipeline.
What’s more, the GPU adds the Adreno HPM, which helps move larger chunks of data for rendering at a time, effectively saving more battery power.
Snapdragon Summit 2026 takes place from September 22-24
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit is coming up later this month, and the company is teasing its graphical improvements.
Qualcomm sent a press release this morning (Sept 2) detailing the Adreno Neural Fusion GPU. If you thought this wouldn’t involve AI, think again. Qualcomm says Neural Fusion is an “AI-driven rendering technology that combines neural processing, AI super resolution, and frame generation into a unified graphics pipeline.” For context, Qualcomm says it’s looking to deliver what consumers want from mobile gaming: console-like graphics, strong frame rates, and better battery life.
This is important because Qualcomm states its Adreno Neural Fusion GPU nails all three of these desires, and consistently, too. The post credits this GPU power to the chip’s new Adreno Matrix Cores. This reportedly brings its AI rendering engine into the graphics pipeline, giving developers the exact tools they need to bump up the graphics for your phone. Lower latency is another positive in this change.
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Helping that lower latency is the Adreno HPM (High Performance Memory), which feeds more data to the GPU for rendering, thanks to a “dedicated optimized cache of 18MB.”
Many of these changes help Qualcomm hit that last point: better gaming battery life. With the Neural Fusion GPU capable of moving more data at a time, it’s effectively moving a lot less, which doesn’t eat up your battery. Then, you have its AI models playing more closely to the graphical unit.
Qualcomm will undoubtedly show off the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 chips in greater detail during its Summit from September 22-24.
What we’ve been waiting on?
(Image credit: Qualcomm)
Qualcomm’s teasers will likely continue until its Summit in a few weeks. The latest major teaser we got spurred excitement. Qualcomm highlighted “Dual 8 Elites” on approach for 2026. Our eyes are looking at that long-rumored Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 “Pro.” Qualcomm hasn’t said anything yet, so do with that information what you will (it is rumored, after all). What the company has said is that its Dual 8 Elites will bring “better connectivity, camera functionality, and graphics for games.”
Get the latest news from Android Central, your trusted companion in the world of Android
What’s interesting about those “Pro” rumors is that not everyone’s phone could see it. While yes, these Snapdragon chips are reserved for flagships, the Pro could only seek out Ultra devices—the Galaxy S27 Ultra would fit that bill. We still have a while until Snapdragon Summit 2026 in Maui, Hawaii.
Android Central’s Take
I believe it was Android Authority’s coverage that likens what Qualcomm’s doing with the Neural Fusion to Nvidia’s DLSS 5. If you’re a gamer or you’ve kept up with gaming in general, this hasn’t sat well with people. DLSS 5 “enhances” your graphics through AI, but from the examples out there, people aren’t convinced the original artists’ intent remains. I hope Qualcomm’s AI doesn’t do that. And if it does, can I turn it off? I’m all for incredible gaming performance on phones, but not if the game doesn’t look as intended.
New York’s prestigious-yet-secretive venture firm Thrive Capital has been hauled into the center of a messy drama that could result in criminal charges against Gianni Infantino, the controversial president of global soccer organization FIFA.
And now Thrive’s prominent founder, Josh Kushner, has finally spoken up about the deal in a statement saying that he still thinks the original idea was a sound one, and would have been good for global soccer. But, he says, “had we known what this would devolve into, we would not have gotten involved.” (Full statement below.)
The scandal involves Infantino’s failed plan to create a new corporate entity called FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) that would have owned some of the commercial aspects of FIFA competitions like the World Cup, including revenues from TV rights and ticket sales.
This entity would have been fully owned by FIFA’s member associations (aka teams) but all MAs would have had the option to sell some of their shares as secondary sales to private investors. The MAs would have had to vote to create the organization and then agree to sell their own shares to private investors.
FIFA engaged JPMorgan to drum up potential investors for the proposed company. That’s where Thrive came in.
Thrive agreed to be a lead (but not the sole) investor in a potential sale of $4.2 billion worth of secondary shares purchased from the teams, representing 20% of FFE at a $20 billion valuation.
But the European teams, which benefit disproportionately under the current structure compared with other regions like Africa, grew outraged by the idea. An association that includes North American teams also objected. Their concern was over the potential influence of outsiders, particularly private equity.
Note that FIFA is composed of 211 MAs worldwide, yet only 55 of them are in Union of European Football Associations (UEF), while another 41 are in the North American organization, Concacaf, which includes soccer associations from North American, Central American and Caribbean. Had the idea of full and equal ownership of these revenues gone to a vote, who knows what might have happened? But it isn’t wild to think it would have been approved.
Meanwhile, the UEFA is now pursuing legal action against Infantino and attempting to mount some kind of criminal case, BBC reports. European fans are also calling for Infantino’s head.
Again, that’s where Thrive has been roped in.
One of UEFA’s claims in its suit is that the valuation of the proposed company was too low, BBC reports. So UEFA asked a U.S. federal court to compel parties to release information. It wants Thrive to hand over documents on how the valuation was derived, communications about the deal such as term sheets, and the identities of the potential other investors.
After months of this turmoil, Kushner finally responded this week, sending a statement first published by Axios.
Money in football has historically been concentrated amongst a small group of countries. The idea behind FFE was to direct more capital and equity equally amongst all 211 member countries, providing significantly more investment to underdeveloped nations to nurture local talent, support grassroots football, enhance the fan experience, and ultimately grow the global game everywhere.
It was an idea that every Member Association would vote on, not an obligation or determination. While we stand behind the motivations of FFE, we failed to appreciate the political dynamics of global football, and the lengths some would go to. Thrive has a long track record of being a partner to all constituents. Had we known what this would devolve into, we would not have gotten involved.”
But perhaps one of the more humorous parts of this is that Thrive has now engaged another famous name: lawyer Alex Spiro, partner at Quinn Emanuel, to represent it, according to a court document seen by TechCrunch.
This quiet investment firm has engaged a lawyer with a big and bold personality. He is someone who can, perhaps, handle the kind of inflamed passions that characterize international soccer. Spiro is known for representing such clients as Elon Musk, Jay-Z, Alec Baldwin, NYC Mayor Eric Adams and Rippling in its suit against Deel over the corporate spy.
The Google TV Streamer has jumped from $100 to $150 at the Google Store and Best Buy.
Retailers including Amazon may still have older stock at the original price, but supplies could disappear quickly.
The Nest lineup also gets across-the-board markups, with all five Nest cameras and doorbells seeing price increases of $20 to $50.
If you’ve been holding off on picking up Google’s smart home hardware, your hesitation just got a lot more expensive. The tech giant has quietly increased prices across its streaming and security hardware lineup.
The Google TV Streamer arrived in 2024 for $100, replacing Chromecast as Google’s flagship streaming box. It was also pretty easy to find below that price, with holiday discounts knocking a few bucks off. Now, Google has quietly bumped up the device’s price by $50 to $150, as spotted by 9to5Google.
The new price is already appearing at Google Store and Best Buy, though some retailers are still selling remaining stock for $100. For example, not all listings have been refreshed by Amazon yet. If you are fast enough, you may be able to pick up older stock at launch prices before it is cycled out.
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Google mentions increased component costs, with the Streamer’s 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage making memory costs a likely factor behind the increase. Other recent Google hardware has already been under the same broader cost pressures.
(Image credit: Google)
The Nest lineup is taking a hit, too. Google has increased the price of all five of its currently available cameras and doorbells by $20 to $50. The battery-powered Nest Cam is now $200, up from $180, while the second-generation wired Nest Cam Outdoor jumps from $150 to $200.
The third-generation wired Nest Cam Indoor rises to $130 from $100. Both the wired and battery Nest Doorbells now cost $200, up from $180.
Interestingly, the Nest Cam with Floodlight bundle is still priced at $280, and the Nest Hub, thermostats, and the new Google Home Speaker remain unchanged for now.
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These changes went into effect August 31, Google says, and with component costs still a big part of hardware pricing, it may be a lot harder to find these older launch prices.
In July and August, Washington tightened restrictions on foreign-made advanced robotic systems and imposed steep tariffs on imported drones and their components, both moves citing national-security concerns. The drone tariffs take effect in September, with additional component tariffs following in 2027.
These moves are part of a broader U.S. effort to restrict foreign technology in strategically important industries. The FCC’s Covered List, established in 2021, initially targeted telecommunications and surveillance equipment from companies including Huawei, ZTE and Hikvision before expanding to foreign-made drones and, most recently, to advanced robotic devices.
The latest move comes as Chinese manufacturers have built commanding positions in both drones and humanoid robots, often competing at prices U.S. and European rivals struggle to match.
Taken together, the restrictions are raising a bigger question for the global robotics industry: If Chinese drones and humanoids are increasingly shut out of the U.S., where does the competition move next?
The restrictions may protect parts of the American market, but they don’t directly address China’s global manufacturing scale and cost advantages.
Industry analysts and executives who spoke with TechCrunch said the result may be less a clean U.S.-China split than a more fragmented global market, with Chinese companies expanding elsewhere while U.S. and allied manufacturers compete in markets where security requirements matter more.
The Scale Gap
The U.S. and Chinese robotics industries remain deeply connected, but the two countries enter the competition with very different advantages. Unlike semiconductors, robotics does not hinge on a single technology that one country can easily control, said Ankur Saxena, an investment director at TDK Ventures.
China dominates global humanoid robot manufacturing, with global shipments hitting 22,000 units in the first half of this year — the vast majority from Chinese manufacturers — according to a report by Counterpoint. U.S. companies, by contrast, are operating at a far smaller scale, said Soumen Mandal, a principal analyst at Counterpoint Research.
The world’s five largest humanoid robot makers by shipments — AgiBot, Unitree, Galbot, UBTECH and Leju Robotics — were all Chinese and together accounted for 86% of global shipments in the first half of 2026, according to Counterpoint.
That advantage could compound. Lower prices allow Chinese manufacturers to put more robots into use, generating real-world data that can improve their technology. Higher production volumes, in turn, can drive costs down further, Saxena said.
Mandal said Chinese humanoid makers are also pushing costs down by bringing more of the technology stack in-house and drawing on China’s existing manufacturing base. Unitree, for example, is developing more components internally, while automakers such as XPeng can draw on their experience in chips and vehicle manufacturing as they move into robotics.
“The United States leads in frontier AI, software and semiconductor innovation,” Saxena told TechCrunch. “China leads in manufacturing scale, supply-chain depth and cost.”
That manufacturing edge has let Chinese companies cut humanoid prices faster than most U.S. competitors can match.
“You cannot sanction your way around a cost curve. You can only out-build it, and America has yet to begin making the decade-long investment that will require,” Saxena said.
Where Does China Go Next?
The answer may increasingly be outside the U.S. Even if Chinese robotics companies lose access to the American market, they still have a large domestic market and room to expand elsewhere, particularly in regions where demand for affordable automation is growing, Saxena said.
Chinese robotics companies are already targeting price-sensitive markets with severe labor shortages across Europe, Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, said Mandal.
Mandal expects humanoid makers to follow a path similar to Chinese electric-vehicle companies: build scale at home, expand into overseas markets, and eventually establish local production. Countries facing labor shortages and demographic decline could become early markets for humanoids, particularly in manufacturing, where robots can take on repetitive work.
The drone market offers an early glimpse of what that more fragmented robotics landscape could look like. The industry is increasingly splitting into two ecosystems: a U.S.-led market built around American-made, NDAA-compliant systems, and a China-led market focused on low-cost, high-volume production, said Bentzion Levinson, founder and CEO of Virginia-based drone maker Heven AeroTech.
Levinson said Western manufacturers are unlikely to beat Chinese companies in the low-end consumer drone market, where cost remains a major advantage. Instead, U.S. and allied companies could increasingly compete in long-range autonomous systems for defense and critical infrastructure, where security requirements carry more weight.
Levinson sees the next competitive frontier shifting from the drones themselves to the technology that powers them and the equipment they carry. “The next battleground is over who owns the next-gen energy and payload architecture,” he said, pointing to battery constraints in particular. As drones become more capable, he added, battery limitations could make power systems an increasingly important point of competition.
Agility Robotics welcomed the FCC’s decision in July, saying it could address security concerns around foreign-made advanced robots before they become deeply embedded in the U.S. market, as has happened in the drone industry. The company pointed to its Digit humanoid, which is designed and assembled in the U.S., while also calling for continued access to the tools and technologies needed to advance robotics research.
A More Regional Robotics Market
“The alternative to China isn’t a purely domestic U.S. supply chain; it’s a diversified allied one,” Saxena said.
That could create opportunities elsewhere in Asia. Japan has decades of experience in industrial robotics and precision manufacturing, South Korea brings strengths in electronics, batteries and automobiles, and Taiwan is a major player in semiconductors. But none can simply replace China, Saxena said, given how deeply Chinese components remain embedded across the global robotics industry.
Asian manufacturers could emerge as a middle ground between lower-cost Chinese robots and more expensive U.S. offerings, Mandal said. South Korea’s Hyundai, which owns Boston Dynamics, and Japan’s Toyota are among the automakers investing in robotics, drawing on their expertise in vehicles, manufacturing and autonomous systems as they move into humanoid robots.
Yang Fang of Beagle Technology, a California-based agtech startup that uses AI and robotics software to turn conventional farm equipment into autonomous machines, told TechCrunch that robotics is likely to become more regional as companies design machines for the labor needs, working conditions and customers in their home markets. Chinese robotics companies, for example, may focus on products suited to China and nearby markets, while U.S. companies are more likely to build for industries across North America, he said.
The result may not be two neatly separated U.S.- and China-led robotics industries. Instead, the restrictions could accelerate the emergence of regional markets: Chinese companies competing on cost and scale across much of the world, U.S. and allied manufacturers gaining ground where security requirements matter most, and manufacturers in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea trying to carve out space between the two.
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I admit I was a little disappointed to learn that the Pixel Watch 5 is powered by essentially a boosted version of the same chip from the previous Pixel Watch, rather than the new Snapdragon Wear Elite, which is positioned as a premium smartwatch chip for on-device AI and more.
However, after reviewing the Galaxy Watch 9 and testing the Pixel Watch 5 for two weeks, I realized that Google may have made the right choice by skipping the Wear Elite. As a result, the Pixel Watch 5 delivers smooth performance, supports new AI features, and maintains good battery life. Unfortunately, the one feature I was looking forward to isn’t here yet.
The same charm
(Image credit: Derrek Lee / Android Central)
Aesthetically, the Pixel Watch 5 is no different from the Pixel Watch 4, with a sleek design that still feels fresh yet is also starting to get a little old. The domed glass screen is gorgeous, and the display is bright at 3,000 nits, although I still don’t really care for its shape, as it slightly warps content towards the center.
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Otherwise, Wear OS 7 looks fantastic, and the UI is incredibly fluid thanks to Material 3 Expressive. Icons seem to shrink and expand as you scroll, and there’s a pleasant bounce to animations.
I like some of the new watch faces like Weave, although I tried creating my own watch face using AI, with… interesting results. It feels more like a way to theme a new watch face than to create a whole new style of watch face from scratch, which is fine but less compelling than I thought it would be.
I do wish that Google would take after Samsung when it comes to widgets. The current iteration looks great and is better at providing glanceable information, but freely stacking widgets on One UI Watch adds a layer of personal touch I would love to see here.
Don’t touch me
(Image credit: Derrek Lee / Android Central)
Gestures are much more prevalent in Wear OS 7. In fact, it constantly feels like the Pixel Watch 5 doesn’t want me touching its screen. As I go through my day, I receive a notification and pinch my fingers twice to open the notification panel, then again to scroll through my notifications, all without touching my display. I then twist my wrist to dismiss the panel.
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(Image credit: Derrek Lee / Android Central)
As I take a stroll through the neighborhood, I let my music and Google Maps guide me to my destination. I pinch my fingers again to open At a Glance, which shows my current Google Maps route, then pinch to swap between the route view and directions. Similarly, in media controls, I pinch my fingers to skip or pause/play the current song on YouTube Music, which you can thankfully customize.
Throughout my day, I raise the Pixel Watch 5 to my face to view the time or a notification, and notice a bright sliver of blue at the bottom of the display, signaling Gemini is ready to listen for any commands or queries. It’s good at knowing when to either fade away or pick up what I’m saying, in case I want to check my Google Health stats, ask it a question about my schedule, or check on a package I’m expecting.
Gemini also gives me the occasional proactive prompts in my notifications to do things like set a reminder. And Gemini even works offline in a limited capacity, which is handy if you don’t have an LTE-enabled watch.
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(Image credit: Derrek Lee / Android Central)
(Image credit: Derrek Lee / Android Central)
It’s surprisingly intuitive and works quite well, but make sure you set your wrist orientation correctly so the watch can better detect your gestures.
Health and fitness are… almost there
(Image credit: Derrek Lee / Android Central)
The Pixel Watch hasn’t been my favorite smartwatch for fitness, but the Watch 5 promises to be better in a few areas, even if I haven’t experienced all of them yet. I recently ran a 5K race and tracked the run using the Pixel Watch and two other wearables. For some reason, the Pixel Watch didn’t record my GPS data, but it did accurately record my run distance and later recorded my route on a long walk I took.
The Pixel also beat the Galaxy Watch 9 in a step test and more closely matched the Garmin Cirqa in heart rate data across several workouts.
(Image credit: Derrek Lee / Android Central)
There have been some updates to the workout screens, but unfortunately the new live-guided training sessions aren’t available yet. As someone who frequently works out, I’ve been looking forward to this feature the most. However, when it does arrive, I will do a separate deep dive into how it works and how it compares to Garmin’s workout tracking.
Google also claims sleep tracking has improved, and I’m inclined to believe it. The Pixel Watch 5 even picks up on moments when I’m particularly restless, though there was only one instance when it didn’t track my sleep. I wonder if I was too restless that night, as I do recall waking up quite a bit.
Unfortunately, newer health features such as Insulin Resilience and Blood Pressure Trends are also unavailable at the time of writing, which is kind of a bummer.
Should you buy the Pixel Watch 5?
(Image credit: Derrek Lee / Android Central)
The Pixel Watch 5 is a great smartwatch, and one I could easily recommend over the cheaper Galaxy Watch 9 for one major reason: battery life. I easily get two days of battery life while tracking sleep and workouts, and occasionally spamming Gemini.
That said, I can’t recommend it over the Pixel Watch 4. The watches are too similar, and the Watch 5 is leaning on the promise of features that haven’t yet arrived at the time this review is written. That said, some of these features may not make it to the Watch 4 at all, so you’ll have to decide if you want to take that chance.
The hype around humanoid robots isn’t particularly new. Thank Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his Optimus robot, as well as the myriad videos of Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot, for that.
Behind that hype, though, there is real progress. The physical capabilities of robots continue to improve, and researchers now believe that the AI techniques behind large language models can make complex robots capable of learning nearly any task.
Those tailwinds have encouraged a new batch of companies to jump in on the promise of profits from humanoid robots. And many of the latest entrants are Chinese automakers.
Earlier this week, Xpeng’s robotics unit raised more than $900 million at a post-money valuation of more than $6.3 billion. The round, led by IDG Capital with participation from Gaorong Ventures, Tencent, and Alibaba, was described by the company as the largest single-round private financing ever recorded in China’s “embodied AI” industry (AI systems built directly into physical machines).
This month, AiMOGA, the robotics unit of China’s Chery Automobile, reportedly began preparing for an IPO, while BYD unveiled a humanoid robot called Xiao Di. Other Chinese automakers, including Changan, GAC, Li Auto, SAIC, and Seres, are also developing humanoid robots.
Among all of them, Xpeng is the Chinese automaker that most closely watches and follows Tesla’s initiatives, according to Michael Dunne, CEO of San Diego- and Singapore-based advisory firm Dunne Insights.
“It’s the most focused on autonomy, it’s the first to commit in a big way to humanoid robots,” Dunne told TechCrunch, adding that Xpeng founder He Xiaopeng is a tech billionaire known for his agility and quick adjustments. “He sees razor-thin profit in cars on the near horizon. Robots look much more promising.”
Xiaopeng and Xpeng co-president Brian Gu are bullish enough that they’ve put their own funds behind the robotics unit. According to the Wall Street Journal, the pair invested about $100 million into the recent fundraising round.
Xpeng’s bet is on Iron, a humanoid robot with a realistic human shape that is built for commercial deployment.
Chinese automakers like Xpeng do bring a manufacturing edge.
“They have all the hardware to get the job done,” Dunne said. “Question is if they can catch Tesla on the AI side of the equation.”
There are, of course, many other companies developing humanoid robots, including Agility Robotics, Apptronik, and Figure, all chasing the same goal: commercial deployment at scale.
Hyundai-owned Boston Dynamics is getting closer to that goal. Hyundai plans to bring Boston Dynamics’ Atlas humanoid robot to its Georgia factory this year and eventually deploy the robots for tasks like parts sequencing by 2028. The Korean automaker, which partnered with Google’s AI research lab DeepMind to speed up the development of Atlas, is opening a U.S. facility this year called a Robot Metaplant Application Center, which will teach robots how to map movements like lifts and turns.
Other automotive companies are also jumping, including supplier Mobileye, which acquired humanoid robot startup Mentee Robotics earlier this year for $900 million. Even Rivian is dabbling in robots with its Mind Robotics spinout — although its robots are not expected to look quite like the humanoids in development elsewhere.
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Meta’s latest smart glasses update stops video recording if someone covers the capture LED after filming begins.
The update closes a loophole that previously allowed users to start recording first and then cover the LED afterward.
Meta says several businesses offering capture LED tampering services have already shut down following its changes.
Meta has started rolling out another update for its AI glasses that closes yet another loophole that allowed users to record discreetly while keeping the capture LED covered.
Earlier this year, Meta took several major steps to address privacy concerns surrounding its smart glasses. The company rolled out a mandatory update for its Ray-Ban Meta, Oakley Meta, and Meta AI glasses that prevented the camera from recording if the capture LED had been tampered with or covered.
Meta said the change was designed to make sure people around the wearer can clearly tell whenever the glasses are capturing photos or videos.
Now, the company is rolling out another update that closes a loophole in that system. Meta VP Alex Himel shared on Threads that the new update will stop video recording if someone covers the capture LED after recording has already started.
(Image credit: Nicholas Sutrich / Android Central)
Until now, users could apparently get around Meta’s protection by starting a recording while the LED was visible and then covering it afterward. With the latest update, doing that will automatically stop the recording.
Himel added that Meta will continue rolling out updates like this to make sure the capture LED can “reliably alert bystanders” whenever photos or videos are being captured and saved to someone’s gallery.
Meta also claims that its efforts against LED tampering are already having a deterrent effect. According to the company, several businesses that previously offered services to disable or cover the capture LED on Meta’s smart glasses have already shut down.
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In fact, the company has also launched an awareness campaign explaining what the capture LED actually means. With AI glasses quickly becoming a much bigger product category, Meta says not everyone is familiar with the light or knows when someone is recording. The company now seems to be heavily marketing these new privacy protections in an effort to build back some of that trust.
In addition to these changes, Meta says it has removed accounts from its platforms that engaged in this behavior, alongside posts that provided instructions or advertised services for tampering with the capture LED.
Honestly, it’s pretty sad that things have reached this point. In my opinion, protections against something as obvious as covering the recording light should have been built into these glasses from the beginning. But nonetheless, Meta is finally closing these loopholes, and hopefully, it makes discreet recording with its smart glasses much harder going forward.
AI Assisted Editor, now available in beta, is an optional alternative to the standard view — now called Pro Editor mode — that provides a prompt-based interface similar to the Firefly editor rather than the full range of Photoshop tools. It includes a side panel that contains generative AI (genAI) features such as Generative Fill, Remove Background, and AI Markup, as well as a text prompt box.
The more streamlined editor view could also prove useful for existing users that don’t need the full workspace for every edit, Adobe said. More seasoned professionals might switch to the AI Assisted Editor for concepts or mock ups, or for quick editing that doesn’t require the full set of Photoshop functions.
For those who don’t need it, however, the new mode can be hidden from view.
Among the other Photoshop features unveiled Thursday is Prompt to Edit, which lets users apply changes to an entire image with a simple prompt — for example, adding stormy clouds and rain. That creates an output layer that can then be modified, such as masking out image elements or changing the opacity.
Prompt to Edit is available in both AI Assisted and Pro Editor views.
A new “markup” feature lets users “visually communicate” edits to Firefly by drawing onto an image, indicating areas to recolor, for instance. This makes it easier to direct the AI model compared to text prompts. The Instruct Edit with Masks, which relies on Firefly Image 5, lets users specify what elements of an image to change with text prompts, with unmasked areas left untouched.
Other updates include Light Adjustment Layer, which provides “professional-grade” lighting controls, such as exposure, contrast and shadows, in a non-destructive adjustment layer, Adobe said. A Stock Panel integration provides access to more than 900 million Adobe Stock assets in Photoshop via a dockable panel, while another addition, Dynamic Text, Shapes and Paths, automatically adapts text along curves as freeform layouts.
