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India may be in the middle of a funding slowdown, but its startup ecosystem hasn’t lost steam globally. In the first half of 2025, India ranked as the third-most funded tech market in the world, just behind the United States and the United Kingdom, according to a new report by market intelligence firm Tracxn.

Indian tech startups raised $4.8 billion between January and June this year — a 25% drop compared to the same period in 2024, and down 19% from the second half of last year. Still, India held its ground ahead of countries like Germany and…

Going on a first date can be stressful. If it goes well, there could be a second, maybe even a third. If not, the hunt for the perfect partner begins again. So, how do you make sure it goes just right?

You start by picking a spot to meet — it has to be midway, and it has to have a menu you both like. Some booze? Maybe not. Do we even want to go to a restaurant, or should we go for a movie? But which one?

For anyone who’s been stuck in this loop, you know the struggle. Happn — a location-based dating app — wants to take that stress off your…

OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman had a call with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Monday, June 23, and discussed their future working partnership, Altman said in a New York Times podcast on Tuesday.

Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft, the AI startup’s major backer, and OpenAI are discussing revising the terms of Microsoft’s investment, including the future equity stake it will hold in the startup.

The Financial Times has reported that Microsoft is considering pausing discussions with OpenAI if the two sides remain…

Mukesh Ambani changed how Indians access the internet. Now, he wants to change how the country uses artificial intelligence — not by hoarding GPUs, but by building solutions that serve people first.

“Technology changes lives,” Ambani said in an interview with McKinsey & Company. “We want to create impact at scale that improves the lives of all Indians.”

For Reliance, that means not just adopting next-gen tech but building it from the ground up — as it did with 5G in 2021, developing the entire stack internally with only 20% support from…

Billionaire industrialist Mukesh Ambani has described the launch of Reliance Jio as the “biggest risk” he has ever taken—one that could have ended with little to no financial return but, in his words, would still have been worth it.
Speaking about the early days of Jio, Ambani recalled how analysts had doubted India’s readiness for cutting-edge digital infrastructure. “The biggest risk we have taken so far was Jio. At the time, it was our own money that we were investing, and I was the majority shareholder,” he said in an interview with…

Australia’s internet watchdog and YouTube exchanged barbs on Tuesday after the regulator urged the government to reverse a planned exemption for the Alphabet-owned video-sharing platform from its world-first teen social media ban.

The quarrel adds an element of uncertainty to the December rollout of a law being watched by governments and tech leaders around the world as Australia seeks to become the first country to fine social media firms if they fail to block users aged under 16.

The centre-left Labor government of Anthony Albanese has previously…

The future of AI agents in enterprise settings will depend on three core pillars—trust, data, and business processes—according to Madhav Thattai, SVP and COO of Agentforce at Salesforce.

Speaking exclusively to CNBC-TV18, Thattai said these elements are non-negotiable for the successful deployment of AI-powered agents in customer-facing and internal functions. “Trust was our foremost priority when we started this journey,” he said, adding that agents must be secure, have access to the right data, and be embedded into business workflows.

The…

Google has just brought AI Mode, its most powerful search experience yet, to users in India. Available in English through Search Labs starting Tuesday, this experimental feature is said to bedesigned for people who want better answers to more complex questions — whether that’s planning a trip, comparing gadgets, or figuring out how to entertain two hyper kids indoors.

Backed by Gemini 2.5 and built directly into Search, AI Mode breaks down user queries into subtopics and dives deeper into the web, combining Google’s search infrastructure with…

Meta Platforms’ WhatsApp messaging service has been banned from all US House of Representatives devices, according to a memo sent to all House staff on Monday.

The notice said the “Office of Cybersecurity has deemed WhatsApp a high risk to users due to the lack of transparency in how it protects user data, absence of stored data encryption, and potential security risks involved with its use.”

The memo, from the chief administrative officer, recommended using other messaging apps, including Microsoft Corp’s Teams platform, Amazon.com’s Wickr, Signal,…

Britain’s competition regulator on Tuesday said it was proposing to designate Google with “strategic market status” to give it greater control over how the US tech giant operates search services.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said steps it could take included making it easier for users to access different search providers and ensuring fair ranking principles for businesses appearing on Google search.

It also proposed more transparency and control for publishers whose content appeared in search results if it goes ahead with the…