Core Insights - Expedia is launching an AI assistant named Romie to enhance travel features such as search, itinerary building, and real-time updates like flight delays [1] - The company is also introducing smart search capabilities that allow users to describe hotel preferences in natural language [2] - Expedia is integrating data from various sources to provide tailored travel updates and suggestions [3] Group 1: AI Integration - Romie, the AI assistant, is trained on a mix of in-house and OpenAI models and can assist users via iMessage and WhatsApp [1] - The assistant can summarize itineraries, suggest restaurants, and link directly to the Expedia app [1] - Expedia has been experimenting with AI since last year, indicating a strategic shift towards integrating AI into its core offerings [3] Group 2: Competitive Landscape - Competitors like Booking.com and Airbnb are also developing AI-powered features, indicating a trend in the travel industry towards AI integration [3] - Startups are leveraging AI to create innovative travel solutions, such as Mindtrip's AI travel agent and Layla's end-to-end travel recommendation app [4] - Rathi Murthy, CTO of Expedia Group, expressed confidence that Expedia's multi-functional AI solution will differentiate it from competitors [4] Group 3: Upcoming Features - Expedia plans to launch a cross-date price comparison tool, an AI-powered help page, and guest review summaries in its upcoming spring update [5] - The company is currently testing new features with a limited audience through its EG Labs program [2] - The AI assistant Romie is expected to evolve further, with plans to enhance its functionality in group chats on WhatsApp [5]

Facebook once had big ambitions to be a major player in enterprise communication and productivity, but today the social network’s parent company Meta will be closing a very significant chapter in that story. TechCrunch has learned that Meta is shuttering Workplace, a version of Facebook that had been built to enable communication among business teams and wider organizations. We have reached out to the company for comment but our sources tell us that the company plans to make an official announcement later t ...

Waymo’s autonomous vehicle software is under investigation after federal regulators received 22 reports where the robotaxis crashed or “potentially violated traffic safety laws” by driving in the wrong lane or into construction zones.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) says the probe is intended to evaluate the software and its ability to avoid collisions with stationary objects, and how well it detects and responds to “traffic safety control devices” l ...

Cruise has started testing its autonomous vehicles in Phoenix, with plans to begin “supervised” driving in the city more than six months after the GM self-driving subsidiary halted its driverless operations across the United States.Cruise announced Monday in a blog post that it will begin testing two vehicles in autonomous mode on public roads in metro Phoenix. A human safety operator will be behind the wheel during this phase of testing, according to the company. Another eight Cruise autonomous vehicles wi ...

Airtel, India’s second-largest telecom operator, said on Monday it has entered into a long-term partnership with Google Cloud to develop and deliver cloud and generative AI products to Indian businesses.The partnership aims to tap Airtel’s extensive customer base, which, according to the company, includes 2,000 large enterprises and a million emerging businesses. The companies plan to offer AI solutions, including generative AI, which Airtel will train using its vast data sets.As part of the collaboration, ...

It’s been a busy weekend for union organizing efforts at U.S. Apple stores, with the union at one store voting to authorize a strike, while workers at another store voted against forming a union.Back in 2022, workers the Apple store in Towson, Maryland became organized the first formally recognized union at an Apple retail store. That union, which is part of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, voted Saturday to authorize a strike. The date of this potential strike has yet to b ...

At the start of the year, Tesla’s Supercharger team was tasked with the impossible. “We were on an exponential path,” a former team member told TechCrunch, adding that the new targets were “super-duper crazy.” Despite the bottlenecks that such expectations can create, “every time they upped the metric, we met it.”Then, one day in April, CEO Elon Musk axed the entire division, even though it was profitable last year. With more than 25,000 charging ports in the U.S. and over 50,000 worldwide, the Supercharger ...

Boeing’s Starliner launch tonight has been postponed “out of an abundance of caution” scarcely two hours before the historic liftoff. The scrub is reportedly due to an issue with the oxygen relief valve on the Atlas V rocket’s upper stage.There are backup launch opportunities on May 7, 10 and 11. After years of delays and over $1 billion in cost overruns, the mission is set to be Boeing’s first attempt to transport astronauts to the International Space Station.Once the issue is resolved with the upper stage ...

Wayve, a UK-born startup developing a self-learning rather than rule-based system for autonomous driving, has closed a $1.05 billion in Series C funding led by SoftBank Group. This is the UK’s largest AI fundraise ever and sits among the top 20 AI fundraises globally to date.Also participating in the raise was NVIDIA and existing investor Microsoft. Waye’s early stage investors included Meta’s head of AI, Yann LeCun.Wayve, which was founded in Cambridge in 2017, raised $200m in a series B round in January l ...

Lucid Motors’ senior vice president of digital Mike Bell has resigned from his position. The company said in a filing Monday that the longtime Apple and Intel executive’s resignation is “effective immediately, in order to pursue other opportunities.”Lucid says Bell will serve in an advisory role through mid-August to help “transition” his duties at the company, and has agreed to provide him with severance a $125,000 consulting fee.Bell joined Lucid in 2021 after about six months consulting with the EV start ...