Flai's AI dealership software is booking 50,000 appointments per month

Plus more of TechCrunch's top stories to start your morning

View this email online in your browser  October 06, 2026 TechCrunch Top 3 Flai's AI dealership software is booking 50,000 appointments per month: Flai's revenue has grown 20x in a year, and the company just closed a $27 million Series A funding round. Read More Bluesky wants to give you your own domain on the open web: Bluesky says the process will still take 18-24 months, so don't expect your new, shortened 'bsky' handle any time soon. Read More Lucid Motors' EV output falls to lowest level in almost 2 years: The company is deliberately limiting production after years of struggling to find mass-market demand for its EVs. Read More A message from R1 Healthcare's Revenue Black Box, Decoded The biggest opportunity for AI in healthcare isn't automation, it's observability. R1’s Payer Atlas analyzes payer behavior across millions of interactions to uncover hidden patterns and detect reimbursement risk, helping health systems move from reactive recovery to predictive action.  Discover Payer Atlas  Our biggest event of the year is coming next week, and now's the time to lock in your ticket to learning how to build successfully in the AI era. You'll get expert insights from leaders from Anthropic, Nvidia, OpenAI, Google Cloud, and hundreds of other sessions across three days.  Save 50% on a second ticket, or if you've been laid off recently, get an Expo+ Pass for just $75. Register Now Morning Must-Reads Mistral’s new 1T model aims to leapfrog closed and open rivals: French AI lab Mistral AI has released Mistral Large 4, a new large multimodal model aiming to leapfrog both American and Chinese rivals. Read More Uber is spending $2.3B to get into catering: It's the latest in a string of deals meant to grow Uber Eats into a food delivery behemoth. Read More Type One Energy raised $200M to build a fusion power plant by 2034: Type One Energy is betting that its lean approach to fusion power will get a power plant on the grid faster, and investors have rewarded it with $200 million. Read More Paramount closes historic Warner Bros. merger to form Skydance: The deal brings together two major streaming platforms, Paramount+ and HBO Max, along with networks including CBS, CNN, MTV, TBS, Comedy Central, and Food Network. Read More Pinterest's AI now turns beauty Pins into action plans: Pinterest’s new AI-powered Beauty Guides translate hair and nail Pins into salon terminology, with estimated costs, appointment times, and maintenance needs. Read More A message from RoMADE The design agency turning MVPs into brands, live at Disrupt Great tech often ships with a forgettable brand. Clody.design, a Romanian creative studio founded in 2019, has built identities for the European Film Market, Marché du Film and TIFFCOM — and at Disrupt 2026 it's offering exclusive on-site logo concepting, turning MVPs into market-ready brands in real time. Find the team at Pavilion P99. See the portfolio Last but Not Least Facebook tests going Reels-first in India: Meta is testing a new Facebook UX in India that sends some users directly into full-screen video when they open the app, putting Reels front and center. Read More Check out some of our other newsletters: StrictlyVC TechCrunch Events TechCrunch Mobility Want to adjust your daily newsletter schedule? You can do it right here Got a tip? Get in touch securely. Want to advertise on TechCrunch? advertise@techcrunch.com Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Unsubscribe Member Center Privacy Policy Copyright © 2026 TechCrunch Media LLC 501 2nd Street, Suite 650, San Francisco, CA 94107

At 19, founder raises $11M for Ghost, maker of a $3,499 computer for personal AI

Plus more of TechCrunch's top stories this afternoon

View this email online in your browser  October 05, 2026 TechCrunch Top 3 At 19, founder raises $11M for Ghost, maker of a $3,499 computer for personal AI: Ghost's first product is Core, a personal computer designed specifically for AI agents that can take actions on a person's behalf. Read More Hot Girl Hotline is like 'Dear Abby' for the AI era: Founded by two sisters, Hot Girl Hotline uses AI to give young women personalized dating and relationship advice, with an emphasis on safety and avoiding emotional dependency. Read More OpenAI will start watermarking ChatGPT's text in the EU: OpenAI will watermark ChatGPT and Codex text in the EU to comply with the AI Act. Editing can make the invisible marks harder to detect, it says. Read More A message from Virginia Tech M.Eng Open House, October 8 2027 Meet Virginia Tech's Computer Engineering faculty in person at our Open House on Thursday, October 8, 6–8 PM, at Academic Building One in Alexandria. Tour the Immersive Visualization Lab and drone testing cage, ask about wireless, cybersecurity, and autonomous systems, and learn about scholarships for Spring 2027. Explore the M.Eng Our biggest event of the year is coming next week, and now's the time to lock in your ticket to learning how to build successfully in the AI era. You'll get expert insights from leaders from Anthropic, Nvidia, OpenAI, Google Cloud, and hundreds of other sessions across three days.  Save 50% on a second ticket, or if you've been laid off recently, get an Expo+ Pass for just $75. Register Now Afternoon Must-Reads Etched fields funding offers at $40B+ valuation, sources say: Just a couple of months after its last big raise, the AI chip startup is already being plied with investment offers at double or more its current value, sources tell TechCrunch. Read More After Factory's public spat with Khosla, Menlo proudly invests: Days after Vinod Khosla called Factory a struggling also-ran, Menlo has shown up with a check and a glowing blog post. Read More Reflection debuts Beam, an open-weight AI model to rival Chinese models at lower compute cost: Reflection is aiming Beam and future models at enterprises and sovereign nations. The pitch is to build “AI factories,” a product that would let institutions build their own customized, local AI system by training Reflection’s AI models on their own proprietary data. Read More Lucid Motors' EV output falls to lowest level in almost two years: The company is deliberately limiting production after years of struggling to find mass-market demand for its EVs. Read More Researchers are tracking a Chinese AI 'agent fleet': Independent researchers discovered an agent swarm that seems to be running on Tencent's infrastructure and targeting Alibaba's map service, Amap. Read More A message from RoMADE  Security guard firms still run on paper. Apseco fixes that Ghost shifts, uncovered posts, overtime that never reaches the invoice — most security guard companies still run on spreadsheets and WhatsApp. Apseco, from Romania, is one platform for scheduling, GPS-verified attendance and billing, configured around how each firm already works. Live today, seeking U.S. pilots and investors at Disrupt. See the platform Last but Not Least HackerRank's AI interviewer offers a glimpse into what job interviews could become: HackerRank’s AI interviewer has already conducted more than 500,000 interviews, with Snowflake, Snorkel, and Capgemini among its early testers. Read More Check out some of our other newsletters: StrictlyVC TechCrunch Events TechCrunch Mobility Want to adjust your daily newsletter schedule? You can do it right here Got a tip? Get in touch securely. Want to advertise on TechCrunch? advertise@techcrunch.com Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Unsubscribe Member Center Privacy Policy Copyright © 2026 TechCrunch Media LLC 501 2nd Street, Suite 650, San Francisco, CA 94107