June 28, 2024
Microsoft adds more former Ai2 researchers, bolstering its Superintelligence team
May 15, 2026
A sign at the Allen Institute for AI headquarters in Seattle, with the Space Needle in the background. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) The wave of departures from the Allen Institute for AI to Microsoft is bigger than previously known: A total of at least 10 former Ai2 staffers and researchers...
Forget smart glasses: UW researchers put tiny cameras into earbuds for hands-free AI
May 15, 2026
VueBuds, a prototype developed by University of Washington researchers who have embedded a rice-grain-sized camera into each earbud of a standard pair of Sony wireless earbuds. (UW Photo) Wireless earbuds seemingly sprang out of nowhere. Popularized by Apple’s AirPods, they were suddenly...
Are we on a Road to Nowhere? Seattle’s growth masks deeper anxieties about its future
May 14, 2026
(GeekWire File Photo / Kurt Schlosser) I can’t get “Road to Nowhere” out of my head. The 1985 Talking Heads anthem is built on contradiction — upbeat and anxious at the same time. Songwriter David Byrne once described it as “a resigned, even joyful look at doom.” That paradox felt...
Can AI replicate an army of associates? These lawyers are betting their new firm on it
May 14, 2026
Matt Souza, left, and Sam Shaddox, founders of Talairis Law Group. (Talairis Photo) Sam Shaddox and Matt Souza have spent years on the inside of big-time legal work, as attorneys at a major Seattle firm and later as general counsels at tech companies. They’ve watched as law firms charge startup...
Amazon Leo aims to double its pace as it gets set to roll out its satellite broadband network
May 14, 2026
Chris Weber, vice president of business and product for Amazon Leo, sports a T-shirt bearing Amazon Leo’s logo in the project’s signature krypton shade of purple during countdown coverage for an April satellite launch. (Credit: United Launch Alliance) REDMOND, Wash. — Chris Weber isn’t ready to...
Microsoft’s multi-agent AI system tops Anthropic’s Mythos on cybersecurity benchmark
May 13, 2026
CyberGym benchmark scores over time, showing the rapid improvement in AI vulnerability discovery capabilities. Microsoft’s multi-model MDASH system (top right) tops the leaderboard at 88.4%. (CyberGym / UC Berkeley) Mythos has been MDASH’d. A new AI-powered system from Microsoft surpassed a...
Cowboy Space raises $275M as it seeks 40-60 employees for new satellite and rocket hub in Seattle
May 13, 2026
(Cowboy Space Corp. Photo) Cowboy Space Corp., a space startup growing out a new satellite and rocket engineering center in Seattle, raised $275 million in a Series B funding round this week that valued the company at $2 billion. The Bay Area-based company — formerly known as Aetherflux — was...
Microsoft’s CTO testifies about email at the heart of Elon Musk’s allegations against the tech giant
May 13, 2026
Kevin Scott, Microsoft CTO, in Redmond in May 2025. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott took the stand Wednesday and, for the first time, publicly addressed the internal email that Elon Musk’s lawyers have cited to support allegations that Microsoft knew OpenAI was...
Opinion: Vibe coding needs an on-ramp — and seat belts
May 13, 2026
(Google Gemini Image) [Editor’s Note: This is the fourth in a series by Oren Etzioni about AI usage and best practices.] I’ve been writing code since before most of today’s vibe coding founders were born. So when I sat down to try the latest vibe coding tools — Lovable, Claude code, and the...
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture reportedly considers seeking outside investment for the first time
May 13, 2026
Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket lifts off from its Florida launch pad in April. (Blue Origin Photo) For more than a quarter-century, Jeff Bezos has been funding his Blue Origin space venture primarily with his gains from Amazon, the other big company he founded — but according to a report in the...
Tech Moves: Microsoft AI leader jumps to OpenAI; former AI2 exec joins Meta; and more
May 13, 2026
Pamela Bhattacharya. (LinkedIn Photo) — Pamela Bhattacharya has left her role as senior director of AI at Microsoft to join OpenAI as a member of its technical staff, where she is leading AI safety work with a focus on child safety. Bhattacharya spent nearly nine years at Microsoft as a...
Report: LinkedIn makes job cuts to position for ‘future success’ amid record quarterly revenue
May 13, 2026
(Bigstock Photo) LinkedIn is laying off workers across engineering, product and marketing, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, as the tech sector continues shedding roles. CEO Daniel Shapero disclosed the cuts in an internal memo cited by Bloomberg. The professional networking platform, which is...
Anduril lands $5B as defense giant builds autonomous warship operation in Seattle
May 13, 2026
Defense giant Anduril is operating its autonomous naval vessel manufacturing facility at the old Foss Shipyard on the Lake Washington Ship Canal in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / John Cook) Anduril Industries announced a massive $5 billion funding round Wednesday as the fast-growing defense tech...
Amazon unifies Alexa+ and Rufus as AI rivals move into online shopping
May 13, 2026
How an Alexa for Shopping price alert flows across the Amazon app, phone notification and Echo Show. (Amazon Image) Amazon.com and Alexa are finally talking to each other. The tech giant on Wednesday announced Alexa for Shopping, a new capability that connects its Rufus...
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s stake in Helion Energy draws scrutiny in Musk trial and on Capitol Hill
May 12, 2026
Sam Altman at OpenAI DevDay in San Francisco in November 2023. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) Sam Altman faced pointed questions Tuesday about his personal financial ties to Helion Energy, the Everett, Wash., fusion startup that’s aiming to supply vast amounts of energy to both OpenAI and...
Big Tech’s new hiring hurdle: Why bringing international talent to Seattle is now more expensive
May 12, 2026
Part of the Seattle skyline as seen from the waterfront. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Two new rules governing H-1B visas took effect last year, aiming to fix the program’s two most persistent criticisms: that foreign workers were taking jobs Americans wanted, and that visa holders were...
AWS targets AI slop with new spec check in Kiro coding tool, amid scrutiny of agent reliability
May 12, 2026
Amazon’s Kiro AI coding tool is getting a new feature that uses mathematical proofs to catch flawed software requirements before AI agents start writing code. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Amazon Web Services is adding a feature to its Kiro AI coding tool designed to mathematically prove that...
Students pitch startups in regional TiE Young Entrepreneurs finals, vying to three-peat in global contest
May 12, 2026
Winners and mentors at the TYE Seattle Chapter Finals, from left: Kishore Panpaliya, TiE board member; Yash Wagh, TYE program chair; Ashish Naik, DuggAI; Vicky Mehta, founder of PathIvy; Shaurya Duggal, DuggAI; Kruthik Ankam, DuggAI; Aravind Bala, TYE instructor; Aalok Doshi, TYE program co-chair....
Leading AI chatbots avoid harm but fall short in high-risk conversations, startup’s new benchmark finds
May 12, 2026
Mpathic CEO Grin Lord, left, and Alison Cerezo, chief science officer. (Mpathic Photos) Mpathic, a Seattle startup that helps AI companies stress-test their models for dangerous responses, has a new message for Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini: you’re getting safer, but you’re still not safe...
‘Strong, strong no’: New filing reveals who Microsoft favored — and opposed — for OpenAI’s board
May 12, 2026
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, right, on stage with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI Dev Day in San Francisco in 2023, about two weeks before Altman’s brief ouster from the company. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) Former Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene was the name that drew the “strong, strong...
Amazon Now goes national, taking 30-minute delivery to dozens of cities across the country
May 12, 2026
Amazon has been testing Amazon Now 30-minute deliveries since last fall in Seattle. (GeekWire File Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Amazon is expanding its 30-minute “Amazon Now” service to dozens of U.S. cities, with plans to reach tens of millions of customers across the country by the end of the...
Microsoft exec Shawn Bice returns to AWS to lead reliability push for AI agents
May 11, 2026
Shawn Bice (LinkedIn Photo) Microsoft security exec Shawn Bice is returning to Amazon Web Services as VP of AI Services, leading the company’s Automated Reasoning Group as AWS doubles down on making AI agents more reliable. Bice will report to Swami Sivasubramanian, Amazon’s VP of Agentic...
Musk v. Altman: Satya Nadella was worried about Microsoft being ‘the next IBM’ in OpenAI deal
May 11, 2026
Sam Altman greets Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at OpenAI DevDay in San Francisco in 2023. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) Satya Nadella drew a historical parallel to Microsoft’s early PC partnership with IBM as the tech giant prepared to invest $10 billion more in OpenAI in April 2022 —...
Filing shows Starbucks’ recent job cuts will impact 61 tech jobs at Seattle HQ
May 11, 2026
Starbucks headquarters in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) A new filing with Washington state shows that Starbucks’ previously reported job cuts will impact 61 tech jobs at its Seattle headquarters. The layoffs are the result of “a reorganization of the technology department at the...
UW DubHacks Next startup incubator produces 20 new student ventures in latest batch
May 11, 2026
DubHacks Next Batch 5 founders at Demo Day on May 7 at the University of Washington. (DubHacks Photo) Senior engineers are retiring faster than companies can replace them, creating a widening expertise gap in industries from aerospace to nuclear energy. Hera, a project developed by...
Let there be light: Redfin powers up ‘Sunscore,’ an interactive map to track property sunlight
May 11, 2026
An interactive “Sunscore” visualization on Redfin shows the path of sunlight on GeekWire’s offices in Seattle. (Image via Redfin) What’s it take to be a neighbor with a sunny disposition? Perhaps more sunlight, for starters. Seattle-based real estate brokerage Redfin launched “Sunscore” on...
Startup building portable AI data centers for remote operations grows Seattle-area hub to 120 people
May 11, 2026
An Armada Galleon portable data center in transit. The company has grown its Bellevue, Wash., engineering team to about 120 people as demand increases for AI infrastructure that can operate in remote environments. (Armada Photo) A heavily-funded San Francisco-based startup by the name of Armada...
Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of May 3, 2026
May 10, 2026
Get caught up on the latest technology and startup news from the past week. Here are the most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of May 3, 2026. Sign up to receive these updates every Sunday in your inbox by subscribing to our GeekWire Weekly email newsletter. Most popular stories on...
Inside the 2026 GeekWire Awards: Innovators reshaping how we work, build, and learn
May 09, 2026
Tracy Drinkwater, founder of the Seattle Universal Math Museum, accepts the 2026 GeekWire Award for STEM Educator of the Year, presented by First Tech Federal Credit Union, at the Showbox SoDo in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota) This week on the GeekWire Podcast: Conversations with...
Expedia Group sees reward and risk in the rise of AI-powered travel
May 08, 2026
Expedia Group CEO Ariane Gorin. (Expedia Group Photo) More than 30% of Expedia Group’s self-serve customer support interactions are now handled by AI. Its fastest-growing marketing channel is getting its brands to show up in AI responses. And the company now has travel booking integrations...
Photos: Inside the 2026 GeekWire Awards
May 08, 2026
The scene at the 2026 GeekWire Awards at Showbox SoDo in Seattle on Thursday night. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota) Hundreds of Pacific Northwest tech community members turned out to honor each other, network and party at the 2026 GeekWire Awards in Seattle on Thursday. The shimmering scene...
2026 GeekWire Awards revealed: Big winners — and big love for Seattle — at annual tech celebration
May 08, 2026
Members of Maison de V’s circus and dance community perform at the opening of the 2026 GeekWire Awards at Showbox SoDo in Seattle on Thursday. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota) The love for Seattle runs deep. During a night of celebration for innovators, entrepreneurs, educators and even soccer...
Helion makes big bet on ‘Tiny Merge’ fusion testbed to meet aggressive Microsoft timeline
May 08, 2026
Helion Energy is building Tiny Merge, a fusion device that is one-eighth the size of its seventh generation prototype and will serve as a testbed for faster iterations of its designs. (Helion Photo) EVERETT, Wash. — With just three years left on a hard deadline to prove its fusion approach...
Bid on the ultimate Seattle World Cup suite experience, and support a great cause
May 08, 2026
From left, Microsoft deputy general counsel Brian DeFoe, Seattle Sounders FC captain Cristian Roldan, and GeekWire co-founder John Cook on stage at the 2026 GeekWire Awards, announcing an online auction for a private suite at the FIFA World Cup Round of 16 knockout match at Lumen Field on July 6,...
Allen Institute for AI launches big computing cluster for $152M project backed by Nvidia and NSF
May 07, 2026
Workers install equipment in the data center housing the new Ai2 computing cluster funded by Nvidia and NSF. (Ai2 Photo) The Allen Institute for AI says it has brought online and started using a powerful new computing system funded by Nvidia and the National Science Foundation, the first big...
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