Alexa can now alert you when something new might tempt you to shop

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2:31That's framer.com slash fcdaily. Rules and restrictions may apply. Attention shoppers, Amazon Alexa can now alert you when something new might tempt you to buy. I'm Imran Shaikh and I'm here to tempt you with your daily crunch for Wednesday featuring three big tech headlines and a little bit of startup news starting right now. On Monday, Instagram announced that it's changing how it labels AI-generated profiles and will start limiting the reach of accounts that feature AI-generated people without saying so. The platform says it's renaming its existing AI creator label to AI-generated profile, which Instagram says should make the disclosure easier to understand.

3:10Now, the new label is meant to tell users that the person featured on a profile was generated or substantially created with AI. Under the new policy, creators who don't properly label an AI-generated profile could see their reach reduced. Creators who use the new label, on the other hand, won't be penalized simply for having an AI-generated person as their profile subject. The label also isn't meant for every use of AI. You see, Instagram says people who use AI to edit photos, polish captions, create graphics, or make other creative tweaks don't need to use the AI-generated profile label. Instagram says the change comes partly in response to users who have stumbled across profiles that look like they belong to real people, only to find out later that the person was completely AI-generated.

3:55The timing's of course notable. Frustration over AI-generated content has been growing as AI influencers become more common across social media platforms. The announcement comes after Instagram faced backlash over an AI tool that allowed users to generate images using other people's likenesses. Who would have thunk that users would object to having their public Instagram content used without an explicit opt-in. Meta then removed the feature. After years of financial struggles, action camera pioneer GoPro is being acquired for$285 million. A company called Starman Optical has agreed to merge with GoPro.

4:33The deal involves Starman Optical paying GoPro shareholders$1.14 per share and leaving those shareholders with about 10 % of newly combined company. The deal, expected to close by the end of this year, will wipe away GoPro's outstanding debt of$92 million. The merger, announced on Tuesday morning, comes a few months after GoPro revealed it was considering pivoting from building cameras to becoming a defense tech company. A day or so ago, YouTuber Markiplier revealed he had amassed an 8.5 % stake in GoPro. That appears to still be on the cards, as the company said the merger will maximize the value of GoPro's IP and growth potential in consumer, commercial, and defense markets by recapitalizing the company, strengthening its balance sheet, investing in growth, and onshoring the manufacturing of products for strategic markets.

5:22GoPro will also fully support its existing consumer products while investing in growth and a broader diversified product roadmap. It's not exactly clear what all that means, and Starman Optical doesn't have a significant track record to judge its performance. GoPro went public in 2014, when its action cameras were selling millions of units per year. In the decades since, the company tried branching into new categories, like drones and 360-degree cameras, but it didn't find much luck with either. GoPro then refocused on high-performing versions of its action cameras and kept them targeted at pros, prosumers, and athletes, but it had to conduct multiple rounds of layoffs as it narrowed the business.

6:02Amazon continues to experiment with how AI can be used to improve the shopping experience, resulting in Tuesday's launch of a new feature within its Alexa for Shopping AI Assistant called Update Me When. Now, this latest edition can send consumers personalized notifications when something new or relevant happens that could lead to a purchase. For instance, Amazon suggests people could use the feature to track when a favorite band launches a new product line, when a new season of a favorite TV show drops, when an artist they like announces a concert tour, when an author they read releases a new book, when a tech company releases a new product, and, well, a whole bunch more as you can imagine.

6:43The launch is one of several AI-powered shopping features that Amazon highlighted on Tuesday, many of which point to a broader shift in the company's AI strategy. You see, historically, Alexa has mainly answered product questions when shoppers ask directly. well now it can help anticipate when something might prompt a user to make a purchase before the shopper even thinks to ask. While initially consumers have to configure these alerts directly, it's not hard to imagine a future where Amazon automatically generates alerts or where it may suggest alerts for shoppers to subscribe to as they browse favorite products.

7:16Among the other Alexa for shopping features, the most useful of these is the existing price tracking feature that lets you ask the assistant to alert you when a product reaches a particular price or a certain discount percentage. The feature can even automatically buy the item for you if it meets these conditions, if you prefer. Now to the latest in startup business news, all in about one minute with our friend, producer Dennis. Imran, thank you. And AI agents that perform tasks on your behalf to help solve your daily problems are all the rage in Silicon Valley. But the startup Fambot sees a future for agents out in the real world too, where they're used by families who need help keeping up with the mental load of children's activities, school events, newsletters, and other family logistics.

8:04To use Fambot, families connect their email, calendar, and the WhatsApp groups they need to pay attention to. Afterwards, the bot will offer a daily checklist with the to-dos and a look ahead at what's coming up on your calendar in the future. Under the hood, the company uses a combination of different AI models, with the caveat that none of the models can train on its users' data. The startup is backed by$3.5 million in pre-seed funding. And folks, that's your Daily Crunch. Today's stories were reported by Sean O 'Kane, Sarah Perez, Lauren Forrestal, and more awesome TechCrunch journalists. We'll see you here tomorrow, same tech time, same crunch channel, and until then, find us at TechCrunch.com.

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