Techmeme
August 5, 2026, 7:00 PM

Top News

Axios:
Demis Hassabis is stepping down as CEO of Google DeepMind to be the unit's chairman and will add the title of Alphabet chief scientist; GOOG drops 3%+  —  Demis Hassabis is leaving his role as CEO of Google DeepMind to be the unit's chairman.  Chief scientist Jeff Dean and several Google AI colleagues …
Bloomberg:
Google says Chief AI Architect and Google DeepMind CTO Koray Kavukcuoglu will lead Google DeepMind as SVP, reporting to Sundar Pichai  —  Alphabet Inc.'s Google is losing some of its most prominent artificial intelligence veterans in a seismic overhaul that is casting doubt over leadership …
Steven Levy / Wired:
Jeff Dean and three other Google execs are leaving to launch Discovery Loop, which will seek AI-powered breakthroughs in drug discovery, chip design, and more  —  Jeff Dean and other high-profile Google executives have founded Discovery Loop, a startup that will seek AI-powered breakthroughs …
Cade Metz / New York Times:
Discovery Loop, co-founded by Jeff Dean, is backed by seed funding from Radical Ventures, Khosla Ventures, and others; Google also has a stake in the company  —  Jeff Dean, who for years was one of Google's most important executives, is leading the new artificial intelligence company with the backing of Google.
Jonathan Vanian / CNBC:
Meta releases Muse Code in beta, a terminal coding agent powered by Muse Spark 1.2, a coding-focused model priced at $1.25/1M input and $4.25/1M output tokens  —  Meta is rolling out its first coding agent called Muse Code as the company tries to challenge leading AI labs Anthropic and OpenAI.
Wall Street Journal:
Deborah Sophia / Reuters:
Shopify reports Q2 revenue up 34% YoY to $3.58B, above $3.45B est., GMV up 32% YoY to $115.57B, and forecasts Q3 revenue growth above est.; SHOP jumps 19%+  —  Canada's Shopify projected current-quarter revenue growth above Wall Street estimates on Wednesday, signaling the company's AI efforts …
Nikita Bier / @nikitabier:
Nikita Bier says he will step back from leading product for X and continue as an adviser  —  Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to pass the torch and demote myself to my natural state: a poster. I'll be stepping back from leading product for 𝕏 and will continue on as an advisor. Serving the X community has been the privilege of a lifetime. X is, and will remain, the most [video]
Lora Kolodny / CNBC:
Uber reports Q2 revenue up 12% YoY to $14.19B, below $14.24B est., Gross Bookings up 24% to $58B, and forecasts Q3 adjusted EPS below estimates; UBER drops 6%+  —  Uber issued a forecast for bookings and earnings that trailed analysts' estimates, while second-quarter profit was in line with expectations.
Natalie Lung / Bloomberg:
Tom Carter / Business Insider:
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Reddit expands its test of Rules Hub, a suite of tools that rely on LLMs to help moderators manage their communities, and plans a full launch later this year  —  It's also planning big changes for developers and old Reddit. … Reddit is enlisting AI to help moderate new subreddits — and eventually the rest of site.
Mia Sato / The Verge:
Joseph Cox / 404 Media:
Mysk: Apple's Private Relay tool can leak users' IP addresses due to issues in Apple's WebKit browser engine, also affecting OnionBrowser, a Tor browser for iOS  —  Researchers found a group of issues that mean Private Relay isn't actually protecting users' real IP addresses.
Brooks Barnes / New York Times:
Disney announces a global deal with TikTok to bring “thoughtfully curated” fan-created short-form videos based on Disney's IP to Disney+'s vertical feed Verts  —  Disney said it would allow “thoughtfully curated” fan-created videos, using clips from its library, to appear on the streaming service.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google says it will begin removing Google Assistant from Android and Wear OS devices on September 4, replaced by Gemini; Assistant will remain on connected cars  —  As expected, Google Assistant is going away in 2026, and the company just provided a September 4 date for Android.
Sam Sabin / Axios:
The UK AISI says it observed 17 cases of Mythos 5 and two cases of GPT-5.6 Sol trying to hack people and organizations during a routine cyber evaluation in July  —  The U.K. AI Security Institute said it observed nearly 20 instances of Anthropic and OpenAI's most advanced models trying …
Shubhangi Goel / Business Insider:
Elon Musk says SpaceX has decided to “build exclusively on Nvidia because we think the Vera Rubin architecture is the best architecture”  —  SpaceX says it's ready to be a one-chip supplier company.  —  On SpaceX's highly anticipated earnings call on Wednesday …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Hark, founded by Figure AI CEO Brett Adcock, previews Handoff, a computer use agent it says outperforms GPT-5.4 and Opus 4.8, and plans for a summer release  —  Hark, a startup that raised $700 million in Series A funding in May, today launched its agent Hark Handoff, which can use a browser efficiently to complete tasks.

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Earlier Picks

Kai Williams / Understanding AI:
Jeff John Roberts / Fortune: