Tech
Why these startup CEOs don’t think AI will replace human roles
As AI companies get bigger in valuation and usage, there is a constant debate about how AI is replacing humans in various jobs. Studies suggest that roles where AI can automate most tasks will be impacted, though some analysts believe that AI may also create jobs, with the displacement effect only transitional.
David Shim, CEO of meeting notetaker and intelligence company Read AI, told TechCrunch at Web Summit Qatar earlier this month that even with the rise of AI tools, it will ultimately be humans who decide the course of action, and their job will be important. He equated the technology with using maps in a car.
“I think there’s always going to be a human in the middle,” Shim said. “I think the job is going to get easier over time. But a good example would be like driving a car. When we first started, you used to have a map. And you’d pull out the map. And you’d go in and say okay I’m driving. I’m deciding what happens. Now everyone uses Waze or Google Maps, and the map is telling you where to go. And you’re just following that order. But you’re the human in the middle who can decide what happens.”
Shim acknowledged that AI would affect jobs, noting that advertising agencies may lose human roles in favor of automated tools. However, he noted that tech platforms would need jobs to oversee the automation process.
Abdullah Asiri, founder of AI-powered consumer support tooling startup Lucidya, said that he believes that AI will replace tasks but not roles. He said that when his company’s clients use Lucidya, customer support agents often take up different roles and responsibilities. He noted that some become supervisors who guide other humans and AI, while some take up relationship-building and business development responsibilities using the time they saved.
Read AI’s Shim noted that meeting notetakers have freed up humans from taking notes manually.
“Nobody here wants to sit down and take meeting notes, but as you start to take away that job, you have a little bit more time to do other things that you can go and focus on. You can send that report a little bit faster, or you can respond back to a customer and actually have better context to make better decisions, versus spending a bunch of time gathering all the information and having little time to make a decision,” he said.
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AI’s internal use and hiring
As tech companies like Read AI and Lucidya are increasingly using AI tools, they want to keep their teams lean. Currently, Read AI’s customer service team consists of just five people, who serve millions of monthly users. Shim noted that the company is using AI tools to make a small team more productive and give them more context to help them do their job more quickly.
The companies are said to be reaping productivity gains. Read AI said that its sales tool helps predict the state of a deal using data from CRM systems like HubSpot and Salesforce. The startup said that it has seen deals worth $200 million approved through that system. Shim said Read AI captures 23% more context with each update, which could be used to evaluate what worked or what didn’t in a lead call.
Lucidya’s Asiri also noted that the company uses AI tools, including Read AI, for meetings and marketing asset creation. He said that the company wants “scale outcomes without scaling headcounts.”
“The goal for any company is to hire people who are AI native, who are very strong with AI, but we need to be realistic,” Asiri said. “Today, this skill is being developed. You cannot find a lot of people who have very strong AI capabilities, not building AI, but using AI.”
Asiri noted that people who would be able to build agents that can help them do their job would be more desirable to hire.
Handling customer perception of AI
Shim noted that just a few years ago, many people were hesitant to have AI notetakers in meetings and didn’t understand why a bot was on the call. However, now people are more receptive to notetakers as long as you give them controls around recording, he said.
Asiri said that Lucidya discloses to users when it’s using a voice AI to communicate. He said that for users, issue resolution is more important than the fact that an AI bot is handling their calls.
“It’s all about resolving issues and finding customers’ problems and resolving them,” Asiri said. “As long as the AI agents are actually focusing on that part, customers are happy that their issues are being resolved. The customer really doesn’t care whether it’s fixed by AI or a human, as long as it’s fixed fast and accurately.”
Tech
SoftBank to spend an eye-popping $33B to build huge US gas power plant
SoftBank subsidiary SB Energy is expected to build a massive 9.2 gigawatt natural gas-fired power plant on the Ohio-Kentucky border, according to a report from Bloomberg. If completed, it would be the largest power plant in the U.S., capable of powering around 7.5 million homes.
With a price tag of $33 billion, the project would be more expensive than recent natural gas-fired power plants, which have skyrocketed in cost, Bloomberg notes. It’s unclear who will ultimately foot the bill, though traditionally rate-payers have shouldered the burden for new generating capacity.
The Japanese investor is a partner in the Stargate project with OpenAI. SB Energy did not say whether the new power plant would feed directly into the grid or if it would power data centers. OpenAI and SoftBank are in the process of building a “proof of concept” data center at GM’s former Lordstown automotive assembly plant.
A power plant of this size is likely to take years, perhaps a decade, to complete even before taking into account the shortage of natural gas turbines. If completed, the project could emit around 15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, according to our calculations based on public, energy-use metrics. When including methane leaks from the natural gas supply chain, the climate impact could be even bigger.
Tech
Reddit is testing a new AI search feature for shopping
Reddit announced on Thursday that it’s testing a new AI search tool that takes community recommendations and matches them with products from some of the company’s shopping and advertising partners.
A small group of users in the U.S. will start to see search results that include interactive product carousels with pricing, images, and direct where-to-buy links.
The announcement reflects Reddit’s broader push to combine its community-driven platform with e-commerce capabilities. The move comes as Reddit launched its first shoppable ad product last year, called Dynamic Product Ads (DPA), which display personalized product recommendations to users based on their interests.
Now, when users who are part of the test search for something like “best noise-canceling headphones” or “electronic gift ideas for a college student,” they will see a carousel of related products at the bottom of the results.
This carousel will feature products directly mentioned by users from conversations on related posts and comments. If users tap on the product, they can view more details and then be directed to the retailer to purchase the item.
“This feature surfaces top-recommended products directly from discussions, giving redditors instant information about any product,” the company wrote in a blog post. “This test is designed to make Reddit easier to navigate while keeping community perspectives at the center of the experience. We’ll continue learning from how people use this new feature and refine the experience over time.”
While platforms like TikTok and Instagram have long integrated shopping features, Reddit is now looking to follow suit. Of course, Reddit isn’t the only tech platform that recently started exploring AI-driven shopping, as OpenAI’s ChatGPT rolled out an “Instant Checkout” feature last September that lets users make Etsy and Shopify purchases within conversations.
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Thursday’s announcement comes after Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said during the company’s earnings release last week that the platform’s AI search engine could be the next big opportunity for its business, not just in terms of product, but also as a revenue driver.
Huffman also noted that weekly active users for search grew 30% over the past year, increasing from 60 million to 80 million, while weekly active users for the AI-powered Reddit Answers feature rose from 1 million in the first quarter of 2025 to 15 million by the fourth quarter.
Tech
As browser wars heat up, Chrome adds new productivity features
As AI companies and startups push their way into the web browser market, the world’s biggest browser, Google Chrome, is rolling out a handful of new features. The company on Thursday announced the official launch of a trio of options, including Split View, PDF annotations, and a Save to Google Drive feature, designed to more deeply integrate Chrome with one of Google’s other online services.
While these particular additions aren’t focused on AI, Google already integrated its Gemini AI assistant into Chrome. The move was made in response to the increased competition from AI providers like OpenAI and Perplexity, which are dabbling in agentic browsers. These so-called browser wars have pushed Google to be less stagnant in terms of developing and releasing more consumer-facing features.
With Split View, multitasking in Chrome has become easier as the feature puts two pages side-by-side in the same tab. This lets you work across two web pages or watch a video while taking notes, among other things. To use the feature, you’ll drag a tab to the left or right edge of the browser window or right-click a link and select “Open Link in Split View.” The tabs will automatically snap into place. When no longer needed, you can exit the Split View layout via an option found via a right-click.
Another practical addition is the PDF annotations feature, which lets you add notes to a PDF or highlight its text from the browser. This means you don’t have to download the PDF and then open it in another application to work with its content. The option, a long time coming, could make it much simpler to do basic PDF tasks, like digitally signing a document, filling out a form, making notes within a file or personal document, and more.
Finally, the new Save to Google Drive feature will allow you to save any PDF directly to your Google Drive account, instead of your computer, where it may get lost. When using this feature, the saved files will appear in a Saved from Chrome folder in your Drive, making them easy to find.
Today’s update follows the expansion of Gemini and other agentic features to Chromebook users last month. And soon, Chrome is poised to adopt another change that was first spearheaded by its competitors: support for vertical tabs. (Tech-savvy users can even enable that option now, in an experimental phase, by changing a flag.)
This reimagined way to organize open tabs was one of the flagship features in The Browser Company’s first alternative browser, Arc, and is now found in its AI browser, Dia. By adding this feature and the others, Google hopes to give Chrome users fewer reasons to switch.
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