Tech
- Tech
India Q1 GDP Grows 7.8%, Surpassing Estimates As Services & Manufacturing Surge
India's GDP grew 7.8% in the first quarter of fiscal year 2026-27, surpassing the Reserve Bank of India's estimate of 7.0%. Robust performance in the manufacturing and service sectors fueled this economic acceleration.
NRI Herald • Aug 31
- Tech
OpenAI To Revoke SpaceX's Cursor Access In November
OpenAI will end Cursor’s model access on November 12 following its acquisition by SpaceX. Citing Musk’s past compliance issues, OpenAI acts amid escalating rivalry, while Cursor relies on Anthropic to sustain users.
NRI Herald • Aug 29
- Tech
Meta Building AI Agent Platform Hatch for Instagram, WhatsApp
Meta plans to launch Hatch, an AI platform for Instagram and WhatsApp designed to use third-party websites like DoorDash and Yelp. The service will debut soon, featuring a tiered subscription model costing up to $199.99 monthly for heavy usage.
NRI Herald • Aug 25
- Tech
Indian American's AI Health Startup Hits $2.5B Value
Harvard dropout Pranitha Patil co-founded Function Health, an AI preventive healthcare platform now valued at $2.5 billion. For $365 annually, the platform provides 160+ comprehensive lab tests, at-home blood collection, and full-body MRI cancer screenings
NRI Herald • Aug 20
- Tech
Indian American AI Founder Wins 2026 Luminary Award
Indian American entrepreneur Navrina Singh, founder of Credo AI, drives global AI governance. Recognized as a TIME100 AI leader, she advises the US government and UN on ethical AI, building infrastructure for responsible technology.
NRI Herald • Aug 20
- Tech
Google Pays $10M for Spirit Airlines Data to Train AI
Google acquired Spirit Airlines' corporate data for $10 million in a bankruptcy auction to train AI, targeting employee emails and operations records. The deal strictly excludes passenger data to ensure privacy protection.
NRI Herald • Aug 18
- Tech
Virginia Tech Professor Naren Ramakrishnan Elected to VASEM for AI Research
Virginia Tech professor Naren Ramakrishnan integrates AI and urban analytics to model complex systems, earning him election to VASEM in 2026 for his data-driven research on human behavior and public health forecasting
NRI Herald • Aug 18
- Tech
Indian American Professor Roy Honored for AI Sales Research
Dr. Subroto Roy, an Indian American professor at the University of New Haven, won an American Marketing Association award for researching AI's impact on B2B sales and restructuring higher education curriculums for the AI era.
NRI Herald • Aug 17
- Tech
SpaceXAI Grok 4.6 Launches: GPT-5.6 Performance at Half the Price
SpaceXAI launched Grok 4.6, matching GPT-5.6 performance at half the price ($2/M input). Optimized for coding and agents via Cursor, it penalizes prompts over 200,000 tokens with doubled rates.
NRI Herald • Aug 13
- Tech
Amazon Uses Twitch Streams for AI Training by Default
Amazon automatically uses Twitch creator content to train generative AI models. Streamers are currently protesting due to a lack of explicit consent, missing compensation, and automated opt-in settings that directly threaten their data ownership rights.
NRI Herald • Aug 13
- Tech
Google Gemini Hits 1 Billion Monthly Users, Pichai Announces
Google Gemini has surpassed one billion monthly active users, becoming the company's fastest-growing product in history. CEO Sundar Pichai announced the milestone, marking it as the fourteenth Google platform to reach this global scale.
NRI Herald • Aug 12
- Tech
Cursor Launches India Office Ahead of SpaceX Acquisition
AI coding platform Cursor plans to open its first official office in India by the end of 2026, driven by a user base that has tripled to over 3 million developers. The expansion follows the launch of a localized ₹649/month "Cursor Start" plan.
NRI Herald • Aug 12
- Tech
Claude AI Content Now Marked With Invisible Watermarks Globally
Anthropic now embeds invisible text watermarks and C2PA file metadata globally across all new Claude models to comply with EU regulations. These hidden, machine-readable signatures survive copy-pasting but degrade with heavy editing or format changes.
NRI Herald • Aug 11
- Tech
YC-Backed Stratum Launches AI Agents to Clear US Government Backlogs
YC-backed Stratum has launched autonomous AI agents designed to process complex U.S. government applications for permits, patents, and benefits. The platform reduces multi-year backlogs to minutes, maintaining human oversight for security and accuracy.
NRI Herald • Aug 11
- Tech
WhatsApp Group Chat Upgrades: Polls, @All Tag, and Spin-Off Rooms
WhatsApp added three tools to help people manage busy group chats. These features include a way to search messages by date, a tool to mention everyone at once, and new admin controls to approve new members.
NRI Herald • Aug 8
- Tech
Top AI Firms Summoned to White House for Safety Talks
White House hosted representatives from OpenAI, Google, Meta, Anthropic, and Nvidia in Washington to review a finalized voluntary framework for pre-release cybersecurity and hacking evaluations of advanced "frontier" AI models
NRI Herald • Aug 4
- Tech
OpenAI Criticized for Luxe Influencer Retreat Promoting ChatGPT
OpenAI has faced intense online backlash after hosting a group of social media creators at a highly luxurious, two-day brand retreat called “Summer Camp” to promote its newly launched product, ChatGPT Work.
NRI Herald • Aug 4
- Tech
Alibaba Drops Biggest AI Model as DeepSeek Cuts Costs
China’s artificial intelligence race has escalated dramatically with Alibaba launching Qwen3.8-Max, its largest and most capable AI model to date, alongside DeepSeek’s ultra-low-cost V4-Flash
NRI Herald • Aug 3
- Tech
IBM and Sarvam AI Partner for India’s Sovereign AI Infrastructure
IBM and homegrown AI startup Sarvam AI have officially partnered to develop and deploy sovereign AI solutions tailored for India's public sector and regulated industries
NRI Herald • Aug 2
- Tech
US AI Investment Fraud Tops $632M in 2025
AI-related investment fraud in the U.S. topped $632 million in 2025, accounting for roughly 71% of total AI-enabled cybercrime losses tracked by the FBI. Scammers heavily utilized deepfake tech, voice cloning, and fabricated celebrity endorsements to pitch fake trading platforms
NRI Herald • Aug 1
- Tech
San Francisco Homes Now Cleaned by Humanoid Robots for $30
Tau Robotics has officially launched an invite-only humanoid robot cleaning service in San Francisco charging $30 per hour. The service deploys human-sized robots to handle dynamic, real-world household and office chores while simultaneously gathering data to train future autonomous models.
NRI Herald • Jul 31
- Tech
IBM CEO Sees Quantum Earnings Impact by 2028-29
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna stated that investments in quantum computing will begin to have a measurable impact on the company's revenue and earnings by 2028 or 2029
NRI Herald • Jul 31
- Tech
Microsoft Expands AI Models, Rivals OpenAI and Anthropic
Microsoft is actively transitioning from a primary investor and partner into a direct competitor against OpenAI and Anthropic by deploying its own internally developed MAI models across its enterprise ecosystem
NRI Herald • Jul 30
- Tech
WhatsApp Adds Browser Calls, No Desktop App Required
WhatsApp launches browser-based voice, video calling, enabling users to make calls without the desktop app while adding new calling features
NRI Herald • Jul 29
- Tech
Workday Unveils AI-Powered Learning Platform Powered by Sana
Workday Learning, powered by Sana, represents a major shift in enterprise training. Rather than forcing workers through static modules just to check a box, this AI-native platform focuses on actual capability building and AI-readiness
NRI Herald • Jul 24
- Tech
Patreon Cuts 20% Workforce Amid AI-Driven Restructuring
Patreon has laid off 20% of its workforce, affecting 93 employees, as part of an organizational restructuring to adapt to an AI-transformed tech industry
NRI Herald • Jul 24
- Tech
Nvidia CEO: Chinese Open-Source AI Models No Threat to US
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stated that Chinese open-source AI models pose zero threat to American tech companies, arguing instead that Washington should embrace them rather than push for bans
NRI Herald • Jul 23
- Tech
Indian-Origin Engineer Leaves $300K Meta Role to Build AI Startup
Indian-origin engineer Prakshal Jain departed a $300,000 Meta position to co-found Mitosis Labs with Alex Morris. The new venture aims to advance human-computer interaction through specialized next-generation AI technologies.
NRI Herald • Jul 22
- Tech
Anthropic's Historic $1.5B AI Copyright Settlement Approved
A landmark U.S. court ruling confirms AI training is fair use but penalizes the use of pirated book data, reshaping data licensing, compliance, and legal benchmarks for generative AI litigation
NRI Herald • Jul 21
- Tech
Moonshot, Alibaba AI Models Challenge Silicon Valley Giants
Chinese AI firms Moonshot and Alibaba are challenging Silicon Valley with efficient, high-performance models like Kimi K3 and Qwen3.8. These firms offer near-frontier capabilities and open-weight access at significantly lower operating costs than their US competitors.
NRI Herald • Jul 20
- Tech
Indian-Origin Uday Ruddaraju Appointed as OpenAI Compute CTO
OpenAI promoted Uday Ruddarraju to Chief Technology Officer of Compute. The former xAI engineer will oversee global data center buildouts, massive GPU clusters, and semiconductor hardware to power next-generation frontier AI models.
NRI Herald • Jul 18
- Tech
Google Workers Rally at HQ: 4,500 Employees Petition CEO Sundar Pichai for Job Security
Alphabet Workers Union organized a rally at Google's Mountain View headquarters, delivering a petition with 4,500 signatures to demand stronger job security, guaranteed severance, and protections against involuntary layoffs.
NRI Herald • Jul 18
- Tech
Indian-Origin Techie Raises $55 million for AI Health Startup
Indian-origin techie Nishith Khandwala founded Bunkerhill Health, an AI healthcare startup that has raised $55 million in funding. He started the company after his father suffered a heart attack, and doctors later discovered that an older, unnoticed scan had already shown warning signs
NRI Herald • Jul 18
- Tech
Moonshot AI Breakthrough: Indian-Origin Founder Slams US Visa Policies Over Kimi K3
Chinese AI firm Moonshot AI, led by CEO Yang Zhilin, recently released the Kimi K3 model. This open-weight AI model rivals top Western systems, sparking intense debate after Indian-origin tech founder Ankit Gupta slammed the US for its "moronic visa policy" and losing this top talent to China
NRI Herald • Jul 18
- Tech
Sprout Social Lays Off 260 Workers in AI-Driven Restructuring
Sprout Social announced a restructuring plan to lay off 260 workers, or approximately 20% of its workforce. The software company plans to use these changes to streamline operations and reallocate resources toward its strategic investments in artificial intelligence and social intelligence tools.
NRI Herald • Jul 15
- Tech
12-Year-Old Indian-Origin Girl Launches AI Startup Voxa
Twelve-year-old Mana Jampala, an Indian-origin girl from British Columbia, Canada, launched Voxa, an AI-powered voice assistant and receptionist for small businesses. Inspired by her father's missed customer calls, she taught herself Python at age nine.
NRI Herald • Jul 15
- Tech
Satya Nadella Warns AI Buyers: You're Paying for Your Own IP
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella warned that companies adopting artificial intelligence face a hidden cost where they "pay for intelligence twice"—once in cash for subscriptions and again by unknowingly surrendering their own proprietary intellectual property (IP) to AI providers
NRI Herald • Jul 13
- Tech
Indian-Origin MIT Engineer Apurva Shrivastava Turns Missed Calls Into ₹8,000 Crore Empire
Avoca is an AI-powered, 24/7 sales and operational agent designed for blue-collar, service-based industries, such as HVAC, plumbing, and electrical contracting. The platform manages inbound communication, intelligent scheduling, and customer follow-ups to turn missed calls into confirmed jobs.
NRI Herald • Jul 12
- Tech
Apple Sues OpenAI Over Trade Secret Theft and Stolen AI Hardware Designs
Apple's lawsuit accuses OpenAI and former executives of stealing confidential hardware specifications and poaching talent to illegally accelerate its upcoming consumer AI devices and bypass years of costly research.
NRI Herald • Jul 11
- Tech
eazyPetition Launches AI Platform to Automate Complex USCIS Immigration Filings
The platform generates print-ready, USCIS-compliant PDFs for a wide range of standard filings, including employment forms (I-129, I-140), adjustment of status (I-485), and travel or employment authorization requests (I-131, I-765).
NRI Herald • Jul 10
- Tech
Indian American Senthil Padmanabhan Named Lyft CTO for AI Growth
According to the official announcement by Lyft, Padmanabhan will step into the role on July 20, 2026. Reporting directly to Chief Executive Officer David Risher, he is tasked with leading the company's technical infrastructure, technology strategy, and engineering operations
NRI Herald • Jul 10
- Tech
Hakimo Secures $12M to Expand Physical AI Security Platform
Physical AI startup Hakimo raised $12 million in a growth funding round led by Zigg Capital. The round brings Hakimo's total funding to $32 million and will be used to accelerate product development, drive real estate and international expansion
NRI Herald • Jul 9
- Tech
Starbucks Taps GenAI to Build In-House Software, Aims to Drop Microsoft and IBM Tools
Starbucks is leveraging AI-assisted coding to build proprietary software to replace a Microsoft inventory tracking system and IBM equipment maintenance tool
NRI Herald • Jul 9
- Tech
Mark Zuckerberg Breaks 3-Year X Silence to Launch Meta's Agentic AI Model, Muse Spark 1.1
Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg returned to posting on X (formerly Twitter) on July 9, 2026, breaking a three-year silence to announce the company's latest artificial intelligence model, Muse Spark 1.1. His last post on the platform was in July 2023.
NRI Herald • Jul 9
- Tech
OpenAI Unveils GPT-5.6 With Sol, Terra, Luna Variants
OpenAI unveiled the GPT-5.6 model family, introducing a new capability-based naming convention featuring three distinct tiers: Sol (frontier reasoning), Terra (balanced daily workhorse), and Luna (lightweight and affordable)
NRI Herald • Jul 8
- Tech
Microsoft Uses Own MAI Tech To Replace OpenAI, Anthropic In Office Apps
Microsoft replaces OpenAI and Anthropic AI models with its MAI technology in Excel, Outlook, and GitHub Copilot to reduce costs.
NRI Herald • Jul 8
- Tech
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma Announces 3,200 Layoffs by Fiscal 2027
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma says Microsoft will eliminate 3,200 jobs during fiscal 2027 as the gaming business undergoes biggest restructuring.
NRI Herald • Jul 7
- Tech
Amazon Plans $25B Bond Sale to Fund AI Infrastructure
Amazon filed plans on Tuesday for an eight-part bond sale targeting at least $25 billion as the company focuses on building AI infrastructure.
NRI Herald • Jul 7
- Tech
Indian American Rishabh Khemka Appointed TaskUs CFO
Indian American finance leader to advance TaskUs’ AI-focused strategy create sustained long-term value for shareholders.
NRI Herald • Jul 7
- Tech
Solstice Acquires Element Solutions in $14.5B AI-Focused Deal
Solstice acquires Element Solutions for $14.5B, strengthening its AI, and advanced materials portfolio amid rising data center demand.
NRI Herald • Jul 7
- Tech
Indian Tech Engineer Charged With Wife's Murder in Washington
An Indian software engineer has been charged with first-degree murder nearly nine months after his wife was found dead.
NRI Herald • Jul 7
- Tech
India’s AI Future Hinges on Data Quality, Not Models: EY Partner
EY's Alexy Thomas says connected, trustworthy data, not AI models alone, will determine India's long-term AI innovation and adoption success.
NRI Herald • Jul 7
- Tech
India Threatens Meta With Legal Action Over Instagram Child Abuse Ads
India warns Meta of legal action over Instagram ads promoting child abuse, demanding removal of CSEAM content and an explanation
NRI Herald • Jul 7
- Tech
SK Hynix $28B U.S. Share Sale Fuels AI Expansion
SK Hynix launches a $28 billion U.S. share sale, leveraging booming AI demand to expand its global investor base and growth.
NRI Herald • Jul 7
- Tech
Microsoft Lays Off 4,000 Xbox Employees in Major Restructuring
Microsoft is eliminating about 4,000 jobs and restructuring Xbox studios as the tech giant continues to shift resources toward artificial intelligence and efficiency.
NRI Herald • Jul 7