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Target has slashed its annual forecasts amid a pullback in discretionary spending due to tariff-driven uncertainty and a backlash against shifts in its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policy. The United States big box retailer, which reported its first-quarter earnings on Wednesday, relies on China for 30 percent of its store label goods. While it is on track to reduce its dependency by another 5 percent by the end of the year, tariff-driven uncertainty has caused a slump. In its forecast, the Minneapolis, Minnesota-based retailer expects a low single-digit decline in annual sales. Wall Street analysts expected a marginal increase…

Amazon is testing short-form AI-powered audio product summaries on select product pages, the company announced on Wednesday. The audio summaries are voiced by what Amazon calls “AI-powered shopping experts” that discuss key product features, customer reviews, and information from across the web. The new AI product summaries can be accessed by tapping the “Hear the highlights” button in the Amazon Shopping app. Amazon will test the feature on products that typically require consideration before purchase, the company says. The idea behind the feature is to help Amazon customers save time while shopping and get important information through a conversational, discussion-style…

Google on Wednesday detailed its plans to bring ads to AI Mode, the company’s AI-powered experience in Google Search. Ads may appear “where relevant” below and “integrated into” AI Mode responses as part of a test, Google says. AI Mode lets Google Search users ask a question and get an AI-generated response, with the ability to go deeper through follow-up questions and links to websites. “In some cases, a website builder might be a good next step [in an AI Mode query], so we may show a helpful ad that can help [users] get started,” explains Google in a blog…

Donald Trump’s 40 Wall Street looks nice from the ground. Its financial picture is far less impressive.Roy Rochlin/Getty Images The most troublesome loan in Donald Trump’s empire, a $115 million mortgage against a Wall Street skyscraper, comes due in exactly 46 days. How the president covers that bill will reveal a lot about his current financial standing—and how politics is shaping it. The property, 40 Wall Street, seems to be deeply underwater. Trump controls the building but not the land on which it sits, long held by a German shipping family. The president currently pays $2.5 million a year in…

AI startup Mistral on Wednesday announced a new AI model focused on coding: Devstral. Devstral, which Mistral says was developed in partnership with AI company All Hands AI, is openly available under an Apache 2.0 license, meaning it can be used commercially without restriction. Mistral claims that Devstral outperforms other open models like Google’s Gemma 3 27B and Chinese AI lab DeepSeek’s V3 on SWE-Bench Verified, a benchmark measuring coding skills. “Devstral excels at using tools to explore codebases, editing multiple files and power[ing] software engineering agents,” writes Mistral in a blog post provided to TechCrunch. “[I]t runs over code…

For the last two decades, Google has brought people a list of algorithmically selected links from the web for any given search query. At I/O 2025, Google made clear that the concept of Search is firmly in its rearview mirror. On Tuesday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and his executives presented new ways to bring users the web, this time intermediated through a series of AI agents. “We couldn’t be more excited about this chapter of Google search where you can truly ask anything […] your simplest and hardest questions, your deepest research, your personalized shopping needs,” said Google’s VP of…

We’re ecstatic to announce that Kisson Lin, founder and CEO of Tanka, will be joining us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI for a provocative — and instructive — interview titled “Your Next Co-Founder Will Be AI.” She’s among the many excellent speakers joining the AI conference on June 5 at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, and there’s still plenty of time to register to get your seat at the table to learn from their expertise — with up to $600 in savings. If you don’t already know Lin, her company powers an AI messenger with long-term memory that self-learns and evolves with…

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Memorial Day is a U.S. holiday that’s supposed to be about mourning the nation’s fallen service members, but it’s come to anchor the unofficial start of summer and a long weekend of travel and discounts on anything from mattresses to lawn mowers.Iraq War veteran Edmundo Eugenio Martinez Jr. said the day has lost so much meaning that many Americans “conflate and mix up Veterans Day, Memorial Day, Armed Forces Day, July Fourth.” Social media posts pay tribute to “everyone” who has served, when Memorial Day is about those who died.For him, it’s about honoring 17 U.S.…

Shopify is giving its merchants a slew of new AI-powered tools designed to help them enhance the online shopping experience for their customers. This includes an AI store builder for users to set up storefronts using a single prompt, as well as an AI generator for creating elements (such as banners) without knowing how to code.  The platform also upgraded Sidekick, its AI commerce assistant, with new voice chat and screen sharing capabilities.  These updates were announced on Wednesday during Shopify’s Edition launch day, the company’s biannual announcement that showcases recent changes to the platform. Image Credits:Shopify The goal of…

The early bird sees the future first — and saves the most. The old saying goes, “the early bird gets the worm.” But in tech — and in life — it’s not really about the worm. It’s about spotting what’s next before the crowd rushes in and the price goes up. TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 is happening October 27-29 at Moscone West in San Francisco. And for the next five days, you can claim your spot — not just ahead of the noise, but at a serious discount. Early Bird rates save you up to $900 — and your plus-one gets…