Tech
World launches tool to verify humans behind AI shopping agents
World, co-founded by Sam Altman, is dedicated to creating what it calls “proof of human” tech — ID verification tools for an internet increasingly overrun by AI-generated content of dubious quality. The connection isn’t lost that Altman’s other company, OpenAI, has been widely blamed for creating a whole lot of that slop (though one could argue he saw the problem coming when he founded World).
This week, Tools for Humanity (TFH), the startup behind World, released the beta of a new verification tool — this one designed to support the build-out of agentic commerce, the fast-growing practice of using AI programs to browse the web and make purchases on a user’s behalf.
More and more consumers are using AI agents to surf websites and buy stuff for them. The trend promises a certain amount of automated convenience, but it has also raised the specter of new forms of fraud, spam, and other forms of large-scale internet abuse.
On Tuesday, World announced its purported solution: AgentKit, a software development tool geared toward commercial websites that allows for the inclusion of a new verification system that let’s those sites verify a real human is behind an agent’s purchasing decisions.
AgentKit relies on World ID, which is the linchpin of TFH’s verification system. The most secure version of the ID is derived from a scan of a user’s eyes via World’s Orb device. The Orb converts an iris into a unique and encrypted digital code — the verified World ID — which can then be used to access TFH’s ecosystem of services via the company’s World app.
AgentKit allows a user’s World ID to be integrated into a recently launched payment system known as the x402 protocol. Developed by Coinbase and Cloudflare, x402 is a blockchain-based open standard to allow automated computer programs to transact with each other directly online — without human intervention at each step. To use AgentKit, users merely register their AI agents with their World ID, which then communicates to websites — via the x402 system — that a distinct and verified human approves of the agent’s purchasing decisions.
“AgentKit is built as a complementary extension to the x402 v2 protocol, in coordination with Coinbase,” Tools for Humanity said in a statement. “The integration is designed so that any website already using x402 can enable proof of unique human verification alongside (or instead of) micropayments.”
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In an interview with TechCrunch, TFH Chief Product Officer Tiago Sada compared the new function to delegating “power of attorney” to an agent. By verifying that the AI program is acting on behalf of a particular user, a website can decide whether to trust the transactions initiated by those agents or not, Sada said. “What the World ID badge tells you is that someone is a real and a unique human,” he said, noting that websites can still choose to block particular users they think are operating in bad faith.
AgentKit is currently being offered in beta to developers, with the hope that feedback will refine it over time. Sada also noted that consumers will need to have a verified World ID, derived from an Orb scan, to qualify for this kind of verification.
It’s a timely move. Major e-commerce sites and financial services have already begun embracing agentic commerce. Last year, companies like Amazon and Mastercard introduced automated buying capabilities to their platforms, and Google recently launched its own protocol designed to support the trend. As the field grows, the industry is obviously going to want safeguards that ensure it remains reliable and stable. World is clearly attempting to position itself as the de facto provider of that stability.
Tech
Gecko Robotics lands the largest U.S. Navy robotics deal yet
The U.S. Navy has inked its largest robotics deal yet as the military branch looks to use robots to keep up with its fleet maintenance.
Gecko Robotics, a Pittsburgh-based company that makes robots and sensors for inspecting large industrial assets, has signed a five-year IDIQ (indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity) deal with the U.S. Navy and U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), the company announced on Tuesday. The deal starts with an initial $54 million award and has a $71 million ceiling.
The Navy will use Gecko’s robots and sensors to monitor the status and health of the U.S. Navy’s assets and fleets of ships, starting with 18 ships in the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
Gecko founder and CEO Jake Loosararian told TechCrunch that the company’s robots will crawl into every nook and cranny of the ships to create a detailed digital replica — sometimes called a “digital twin” — of each vessel. The company’s software will help the organization monitor the assets and recommend maintenance, trying to get ahead of problems before they arise and reduce maintenance times and cost.
“Once you create that digital representation using the robotic systems of the health and the condition of these assets, and even the digitization of the environment itself, then you can accelerate how quickly you can make decisions and repair,” Loosararian said. “You want to be able to build this living, breathing model that ensures that you’re reducing days into the future that these assets have to spend [out of service].”
This deal is meant to help the Navy reach its goal of having 80% ship readiness by 2027. Today, about 40% of the Navy’s fleet is unavailable at any given time due to the long maintenance cycles on these vessels.
“It’s like $13 billion to $20 billion a year in maintenance,” Loosararian said. “At a time when you need every asset you can get, that’s pretty critical. And these assets aren’t getting any younger either.”
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Gecko has been working with the U.S. Navy for four years. After a port engineer stationed in Japan reached out to learn more about the company, Gecko conducted an evaluation and a drew up a preventative maintenance plan. The Navy was impressed, and the relationship grew from there, leading up to Tuesday’s deal.
“We’re helping to ensure that our critical assets live as long as they can and never are down,” Loosararian said. “I want to live in a world where we don’t have ships going through maintenance cycles, because we just know what’s broken and what to fix while they’re actually deployed. That’s my vision of the future, whether it’s a military asset or it’s a power plant.”
Tech
Amazon adds 1-hour and 3-hour delivery options in the US
Amazon is launching one-hour and three-hour delivery options across many cities in the U.S. as the e-commerce giant looks to compete with instant delivery companies like Instacart, DoorDash, and Uber Eats.
The e-commerce giant is making more than 90,000 items available via this new delivery system. If an item can be delivered to a user within one or three hours, they’ll see a label saying so next to that item on the Amazon app. There’s also a filter for these new delivery options in the app and on the site.

Amazon Prime subscribers will be charged $9.99 for one-hour deliveries and $4.99 for three-hour deliveries. If you don’t have a Prime subscription, you’ll pay $19.99 for one-hour deliveries and $14.99 for three-hour deliveries.
Amazon said it is making the one-hour delivery option available in hundreds of cities in the U.S., including parts of major metropolitan areas like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., as well as Des Moines, Boise, and American Fork. The three-hour option is available in over 2,000 U.S. cities and towns.
The company is also launching a dedicated storefront to house items eligible for these new delivery options.
“Our customers are busier than ever and are looking for new ways to save time while keeping their households running. We saw an opportunity to use our unique operational expertise and delivery network to help make customers’ lives a little easier while unlocking even more value for Prime members,” Udit Madan, senior vice president of Worldwide Operations at Amazon, said in a statement.
The company said it is using its existing, same-day fulfillment sites for the new delivery options.
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This isn’t the first time Amazon has tried its hand at instant deliveries. The company previously launched one-hour deliveries under the “Prime Now” service in 2014, but it was discontinued in 2021. And then in December 2025, it piloted a 30-minute delivery option in Seattle and Philadelphia.
The company has been trying to get into the quick-commerce game worldwide. In India, the company in 2024 launched Amazon Now, a 10-minute delivery service for groceries and other items, and last year expanded it to several cities. Amazon launched the service in the United Arab Emirates last October, promising deliveries within 15 minutes.
Tech
Gamma adds AI image generation tools in bid to take on Canva and Adobe
Gamma, a platform that lets you use AI to create presentations and websites, is launching a new image-generation product for making marketing assets as it seeks to better compete with the likes of Canva and Adobe.
The company says its new product, called Gamma Imagine, will let users employ text prompts to create brand-specific assets like interactive charts and visualizations, marketing collateral, social graphics, and infographics. Gamma currently provides more than 100 templates, which you can use alongside its AI tools to build the kind of assets that you need.
To power its data-driven asset generation features, the company is integrating with tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Make, Zapier, Atlassian, n8n, and Superhuman Go.
“As we started working with a lot of our early users, we realized that in the presentations they want to create, there was a variety of graphical design use cases that they all also had,” Grant Lee, Gamma’s CEO and co-founder, told TechCrunch. “So we worked alongside them to develop basically a new set of tools that allows them to go far beyond just the traditional presentation format,” he said.
Lee believes Gamma sits well between tools for professionals like Adobe or Figma, and legacy tools like Microsoft PowerPoint.
“We think we can serve the very long tail of knowledge workers and business professionals whose demand for their job is to communicate visually, but they just don’t have the tools. They need to pull in a design resource to be able to help with this stuff, and we want to make an-AI native approach that serves their needs in the sort of middle that we feel is really underserved,” he said.
Last November, Gamma raised $68 million in a Series B round led by a16z, at a $2.1 billion valuation. At that time, the company said it had ARR of $100 million, and 70 million users. The company told TechCrunch that it is approaching 100 million users now.
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