Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Mashable Selects Say More Trending Now Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Safety Net Mashable @Home In My Bag Versus Creator Playbook Getting Technical with Mashable All Series The new agent will launch next year, furthering Airbnb's enthusiastic investment in AI. Amanda Yeo is an Assistant Editor at Mashable, covering entertainment, culture, tech, science, and social good. Based in Australia, she writes about everything from video games and K-pop to movies and gadgets. Airbnb is planning to launch an AI travel agent next year. The company shared details of the project during its Q3 2026 earnings call on Thursday, reiterating its intention to build an AI-native Airbnb.

It will be able to build an interface around your inquiry in real time. Airbnb is planning to expand the presence of artificial intelligence features on its platform even further. The company has revealed that it's developing a new kind of AI agent, which will be designed to serve as a travel agent of sorts, in its letter for shareholders that it released with its Q3 2026 earnings. Airbnb said it's building a brand new interface that offers a custom AI experience that builds the interface around your question. The company said it doesn't think a traditional chatbot is the right way to plan a trip.

WIRED uncovered some 400 apps and websites linked to Chinese-language developers that look like regular AI tools but had secret features that let users create violent AI-generated images and video. At first glance, the self-proclaimed "pet portrait" app Viefur appears to be just another AI slop generator. Using digital coins sold in the app--around $4 will buy 130 coins--pet photos can be turned into an "anthropomorphic portrait," with the critter dressed in "human clothing" and inserted into bizarre scenes. Think a hamster wearing beach shorts, sunglasses, and lounging in a swimming pool or a Hawaiian shirt-wearing cat, drinking from a coconut. All of this is cover for what appears to be the app's true purpose: creating sexually abusive deepfake images.

An exclusive early look at Apple's new touchscreen MacBook Pro--the computer Apple said would never happen. Apple's new CEO strolls to an outdoor seating area within the company's otherworldly ring-shaped headquarters and pulls up a chair. An employee notes the angle and asks if he minds the sun. Nearly two months into his tenure, he's been busy. While the tech world buzzes about AI agents and the upcoming IPO of a company reporting spectacular losses, Ternus' leadership of a ridiculously profitable firm has so far been defined by a sequence of significant launches--the long-awaited foldable iPhone, a household device that can control digital appliances, new Mac Minis, and AirPods. Intentionally or not, all that activity sends a message that, even as AI dominates the public imagination, hardware products still rule.

Getting Technical with Mashable Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Mashable Selects Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Say More Versus Trending Now In My Bag Mashable @Home Top creators, ranked Creator Playbook All Series Some TV owners are asking Claude Code to clear out the junk so they can just watch their shows. Olivia Tauber is the deputy editor of digital culture, covering creators, media, movies, beauty, and more. Based in New York, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The Cut, Teen Vogue, Complex, and Interview Magazine. She holds a Master's degree in Journalism from NYU and a Bachelor's from the University of Michigan. She also runs Fan Mail, a weekly pop-culture newsletter.

Less than a year after it promised to remove unnecessary Copilot integration from Windows 11, Microsoft announced today that it plans to turn part of the operating system's Task Bar into a sort of chatbot. Starting this fall, the Search Menu will allow you to carry out thousands of different actions across Windows just by typing short commands into its interface. During the company's fall Surface event, Pavan Davuluri, Microsoft's executive vice president of Windows and Devices, demoed how the new Search experience can quickly turn on and off settings like dark mode and do not disturb. He also demoed how the redesigned menu allows users to converse with the new Copilot app, without launching the software separately. If you want to continue the conversation, you can jump directly into the app.

Bridge Neurotech is planning to build a wearable brain-computer interface that uses ultrasound. Sam Altman-backed Merge Labs has a new competitor in the race to build a brain-computer interface powered by ultrasound. Bridge Neurotech is launching with $13.5 million in funding, including from venture firm General Catalyst, which has also backed major tech companies such as Anduril, Anthropic, Airbnb, and Stripe. The company is the latest in a growing field of startups that aim to translate signals from the brain into useful actions. Elon Musk's Neuralink, plus Synchron, Paradromics, and Precision Neuroscience are all working on brain-computer interfaces to help people who have lost the ability to move or speak.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Get Amazon's 55-inch 4K smart TV for under $300 ahead of Prime Day Amazon's 55-inch Ember 4K Smart TV is down to $279.99 (was $459.99), Amazon is currently selling its 55-inch Ember 4K Smart TV for just $279.99, a 39% discount off its original $459.99 price. That matches the lowest price it's ever been, representing a deal in the days leading up to October Prime Day next week. If you want a feature-rich 4K TV for under $300, this is the deal you want to jump on. This Amazon Ember TV (model 4K55N402) has a large 55-inch screen with ultra-high-def 3840 2160 4K resolution, complete with HDR10, HDR10+, and HLG support, ensuring greater contrast and rendering of dark areas.

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Anthropic has launched Claude Docs, a new feature that lets the AI assistant/chatbot create documents for you. As part of the company's efforts to make it easier to access Claude's many capabilities -- more on this later -- you'll be able to ask it to make a document for you right within your conversation. You can ask Claude to create a document, such as a one-page sheet with pertinent information, and it will post the result inside your chat. The document starts private, but you can choose to share it with colleagues if you're collaborating with them. While you can edit the document within Claude, you can also export and open it in Google Docs or Microsoft Word if you want. The company is also adding the ability to create slides and presentations within conversations.