Ozlo, the maker of comfortable, easy-to-use “sleepbuds” that drown out outside noise so you can get better rest, is turning its product into a platform. The company’s plan began to take shape last month with the announcement of a partnership between Ozlo and meditation app Calm. But it kicked into high gear at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week as the company met with prospective partners to expand its reach. Those new partners could help Ozlo tap into new audiences and build a revenue model beyond consumer-focused hardware and into the profit-margin-rich world of software subscriptions and…

Meta today announced three deals to provide its data centers with nuclear power: one from a startup, one from a smaller energy company, and one from a larger company that already operates several nuclear reactors in the U.S. Oklo and TerraPower, two companies developing small modular reactors (SMR), each signed agreements with Meta to build multiple reactors, while Vistra is selling capacity from its existing power plants. Nuclear power has become a favored power source for tech companies as their AI ambitions have grown, providing stable 24/7 electricity. Startups and existing reactors have benefited from the race for data center…

Elon Musk’s AI company has restricted Grok’s controversial AI image-generation feature to only paying subscribers on X, after the tool invited heavy criticism from across the world for letting users generate sexualized and nude images of women and children. In replies to users on Friday, Grok said only paying subscribers on X would be able to generate and edit images on the platform. Notably, these limits do not apply to the Grok app, which, at the time of publication, was letting anyone generate pictures without having to pay for a subscription. Initially available to anyone with daily limits, Grok’s image…

Andreessen Horowitz just announced the firm has just raised a little more than $15 billion in new funding. The haul represents over 18% of all venture capital dollars allocated in the United States in 2025, according to firm co-founder Ben Horowitz, but even more jaw-dropping is that it brings the organization to more than $90 billion in assets under management, putting it neck-and-neck with Sequoia Capital as among the largest venture firms in the world. Which is fitting, since a16z appears to be very friendly with actual sovereign wealth funds, including at least one from Saudi Arabia. The firm, which…

In the season finale of Build Mode, Isabelle Johannessen sits down with Paul Irving, partner and COO of GTMfund, to discuss go-to-market strategies for the AI era. Paul shares specific, actionable advice on how early-stage startups can win even when facing well-funded competitors who iterate at lightning speed. He also explains why distribution has become the final remaining moat when technical advantages disappear in months instead of years, and why every company needs a unique go-to-market motion tailored to their specific ICP.  They also dive into the power of warm-introduction mapping and building authentic relationships with operators who can open doors. Irving highlights one of the best parts of the…

AI research lab Anthropic continues to land sizable enterprise deals. Its latest entails bringing its large language models to a legacy German insurance giant. Anthropic on Friday announced a deal with Munich, Germany-based global insurance conglomerate Allianz to bring “responsible AI” to the insurance industry. The parties declined to share financial terms of the deal. The partnership is made up of three specific initiatives. The first is making Claude Code, Anthropic’s AI-powered coding tool, available to all of Allianz’s employees. Anthropic and Allianz will also build custom AI agents for Allianz employees that can execute multi-step workflows with a human…

Snowflake plans to acquire Observe, an observability platform that has been built on Snowflake’s databases from day one. (Observability platforms help companies monitor their software systems and data for performance issues and bugs.) The cloud data company announced it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Observe, subject to regulatory approval, on January 8. Snowflake will integrate Observe’s product into its own to give customers a unified place to collect and store their telemetry data (logs, metrics, and traces from software systems) and better spot potential bugs and issues in their data and software. Observe was founded in 2017 by Jacob…

Nvidia is now requiring its customers in China to pay upfront in full for its H200 AI chips even as approval stateside and from Beijing remains uncertain, Reuters reported, citing anonymous sources. The chipmaker isn’t leaving any room for refunds or changes to orders, the report said. While some customers may be allowed to use commercial insurance or asset collateral, the terms are far stricter than Nvidia’s earlier policies, which sometimes permitted partial deposits, Reuters reported. Nvidia declined to comment.   China is expected to allow Nvidia to sell its H200 chips in the country, per Bloomberg, though Beijing wants…

While CES 2026 is full of tech giants unveiling their latest innovations, the real excitement comes from discovering unexpected, quirky gadgets that make you ask, “Who thought of this?” We’re here to spotlight the wildest products we’ve found so far at CES 2026, from an AI-powered panda that responds to your touch, to Razer’s holographic anime assistant, and plenty more weirdness that makes you do a double-take. An AI anime companion that watches you from your desk  Razer’s Project AVA, originally introduced last year as an esports AI coach, has evolved into something new: a 5.5-inch animated holographic desk companion…

Following the success of TikTok and Instagram Reels, Disney announced that it’s bringing short-form video content to Disney+ in the U.S. this year in a bid to boost daily engagement. Disney made the announcement at its Tech + Data Showcase event at CES 2026. The company said in the blog post that the experience “will evolve as it expands across news and entertainment and delivers a more personalized, dynamic experience that reinforces Disney+ as a must-visit daily destination.” Disney told Deadline that the videos could include original short-form content, repurposed social clips, scenes from TV shows or movies, or a combination.…