GEEK News
05. Juni 2015 - 13:04
The biggest unresolved question in AI right now, and more takeaways from Madrona’s IA40 Summit
Madrona Managing Director Matt McIlwain speaks at the IA40 Summit in Seattle on Wednesday. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Executives from companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, Anthropic and Stripe agreed on a lot this week about where AI is headed. But one big question was left unresolved: who keeps the relationship with the customer, and the data that comes from it, once an AI agent is in the...
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Seattle voice AI startup Ultravox, formerly known as Fixie, acquired by Inworld
The co-founders of Ultravox, which launched in 2022 as Fixie, from left: Hessam Bagherinezhad, Matt Welsh, Justin Uberti and Zach Koch. (Fixie Photo) Seattle voice AI startup Ultravox, which launched as Fixie, has been acquired by Inworld for an undisclosed sum. Ultravox was founded in 2022 by Google and Apple veterans to build a speech model for real-time, natural-sounding AI voice...
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Seattle Space Week shines a light on eight problems and prospects for pioneers on the final frontier
Dale Goulding, chief operating officer at Forge Digital, chats with Michael Reilly, chief strategy officer at Varda Space Industries, at the Space Northwest Symposium in Federal Way, Wash. One of Varda’s orbital capsules is on display in front of them. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) How high can Washington state’s space industry rise? Preliminary findings suggest that the economic impact of...
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Seattle software engineer turned general contractor built an AI guide to the patchwork of permit rules
A 3D rendering of the buildable envelope for a property in Seattle is part of the information displayed by Pascal Matta’s permitting information tool. (Screengrab via kolmo.io/permits) Pascal Matta has a background building software for tech giants like Google and T-Mobile. But when he wanted to have a deck added to his Seattle home, he discovered that municipal code was far trickier than...
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Amazon pledges $1B to data center communities, warns that local opposition threatens U.S. AI lead
Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman, shown at AWS re:Invent in 2025, says local opposition to data centers threatens the U.S. position in the AI race. (Amazon Photo / Noah Berger) Amazon says it will spend more than $1 billion over five years in the U.S. communities where it builds and operates data centers, responding to a growing backlash across the country against the tech industry’s...
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SpaceX’s rideshare launch kicks off milestone mission for Starfish Space’s first Otter space vehicle
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket rises from its California launch pad, sending 130 payloads into orbit. (Credit: SpaceX via X) Starfish Space’s first full-scale Otter satellite servicing vehicle went into orbit today, marking a major milestone for the Tukwila, Wash.-based startup. The Otter spacecraft was among 130 payloads launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California aboard a SpaceX...
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Startup Spotlight: Porchlight uses AI to help foster human connection in senior care
Porchlight founder Patrick Donahue’s parents worked in medicine, and hospice care was part of his family’s life. (Photo courtesy of Donahue) When a new caregiver walks into an assisted living room for a shift, they usually hold a chart with a room number and a list of medical needs — and almost no background about the human being in the bed. They might be caring for a former machinist, a...
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Tech Moves: Amazon GM departs for Scala; Flyhomes appoints 3 leaders; Heinz Marketing names COO
Asic Demberel. (LinkedIn Photo) Leadership changes at Bellevue, Wash.-based companies are dominating the news in this week’s Tech Moves, plus some notable items in neighboring Redmond. — Former Amazon leader Asic Demberel is now chief technology officer for Scala, a Bellevue-based startup offering an AI operating system for contact centers and customer operations. Demberel was with Amazon...
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Longtime Microsoft research leader Peter Lee and former LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky to depart
Peter Lee, left, and Ryan Roslansky both shared news this week that they’re leaving Microsoft. (LinkedIn Photos) Two top Microsoft executives announced this week that they’re leaving the Redmond, Wash., tech giant: — Peter Lee, the former head of Microsoft Research and most recently president of Microsoft Science, is resigning after more than 16 years. “As for what I’ll be doing next,...
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New JPMorganChase Seattle tech leader: How AI is changing what the bank looks for in engineers
Ture Armas, left, JPMorganChase’s CTO and head of Commercial Bank Lending Technology and the new leader of its Seattle Tech Center, and Kristine Baker, a JPMorganChase vice president who manages the Seattle Tech Center. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Ture Armas has been encouraging JPMorganChase engineers, from Seattle to India, to rethink their approach to the job as AI changes how software...
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Kindle gets a clicker: Amazon unveils $35 page-turning remote and refreshes its e-reader lineup
Amazon’s $34.99 Kindle Click remote, shown with the new base Kindle in a purple shade Amazon calls “ube.” (Amazon Photo) Amazon’s Kindle is joining the ranks of TVs and garage doors. The company on Thursday unveiled the Kindle Click, a $34.99 Bluetooth remote control that lets readers prop up their e-readers and turn pages without holding or reaching for them. It’s the first official Kindle...
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Starcloud’s AI computing payload will get a ride to lunar orbit on Firefly’s space vehicle
An artist’s conception shows Firefly’s Elytra spacecraft in lunar orbit, with Starcloud’s SC-1L data-processing payload highlighted in purple. (Firefly Aerospace Illustration) Redmond, Wash.-based Starcloud has signed up to send its artificial intelligence data-processing hardware into lunar orbit on a Firefly Aerospace spacecraft. Starcloud’s payload, known as SC-1L, will fly on Firefly’s...
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UW moves Global Innovation Exchange program to Microsoft’s campus in rent-free deal
The UW’s Global Innovation Exchange program has moved into a new full-time space on the Microsoft campus. (UW Photo) The University of Washington and Microsoft today celebrated the opening of the permanent home of the UW’s Global Innovation Exchange (GIX), an institute supporting tech leaders, on the tech giant’s Redmond, Wash., campus. GIX is the first UW program to set up full-time...
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Seattle Times journalists picket over AI, calling for job protections in contract talks
Seattle Times Union members picket outside the newspaper’s offices on Wednesday. “Honk if you hate AI.” (GeekWire Photo / Grace Kaste) Members of the Seattle Times Union held a lunchtime picket outside the newspaper’s offices Wednesday, calling on the company to guarantee that AI won’t replace any newsroom jobs. The picket comes six months into contract negotiations that the union says are...
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UW starts construction on $231.1M chemistry hub set to open in 2029
Artist rendering of the UW’s new Chemical Sciences Building. The design-build team is Skanska and Payette+EHDD. (UW Image) The University of Washington today marked the groundbreaking of its Chemical Sciences Building, a $231.1 million facility that will provide new laboratories for instruction and research in areas including sustainable chemistry, human health, advanced materials and quantum...
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Report: Downtown Seattle lost 13,000 jobs in a year, while Bellevue’s tech hub boomed
A display at the Downtown Seattle Association’s annual event. (GeekWire Photo / Lisa Stiffler) Seattle’s economic engine is stalling, and downtown is taking the brunt of the hit. Between 2024 and 2025, Seattle shed 18,065 total jobs, with a staggering 70% of those losses—13,000 jobs—coming directly from the city’s downtown core, according to a new report released by the Downtown Seattle...
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‘Agents are very harsh customers’: Microsoft exec warns many apps will lose pricing leverage
Microsoft’s Charles Lamanna, executive vice president of Copilot, Agents and Platform, left, speaks with Madrona Managing Director Matt McIlwain at Madrona’s IA40 Summit in Seattle on Wednesday. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Charles Lamanna, the Microsoft executive who oversees Microsoft 365 and the platform behind Copilot, says most business software will end up running behind AI agents...
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There’s a new No. 1 on the GeekWire 200 as AI and hardware reshape our Pacific Northwest startup index
Companies building software for the AI boom and advanced machinery for space, energy and defense are remaking the Pacific Northwest’s tech economy, and both trends are showing up in full force on the GeekWire 200, our ranking of the region’s top privately held tech startups. The Fall 2026 update, released Wednesday morning, features a new No. 1: Temporal, the Bellevue, Wash., company whose...
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Spending management company Fraxion acquires Yellow Dog Software
Stanton Jandrell, CEO and co-founder of Fraxion. (Fraxion Photo) Seattle-based spending management company Fraxion has acquired Yellow Dog Software, which offers inventory management software for the hospitality, sports, food and beverage, and retail industries. Fraxion serves as a digital gatekeeper for business expenses by tracking, controlling and approving business expenses. Yellow Dog...
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Meet the X-BAT: Full specs on the new AI-piloted fighter jet to be built in Washington state
Shield AI’s new X-BAT autonomous fighter jet is designed to take off and land vertically. Rendering via Shield AI. Traditional military air operations rely heavily on fixed, vulnerable targets: long concrete runways and aircraft carriers. Shield AI’s new X-BAT autonomous fighter jet is designed to bypass that infrastructure entirely, utilizing a vertical takeoff mechanism and a mobile...
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Shield AI selects Seattle area to build X-BAT autonomous fighter jet, plans to add 4,000 jobs by early 2030s
The X-BAT autonomous fighter jet will be built at a new facility in Washington state. Renderings and images via Shield AI. DES MOINES, Wash. — Defense tech powerhouse Shield AI is establishing a massive advanced manufacturing hub in Washington state, tapping the Seattle region’s deep aerospace and tech roots to build a next-generation autonomous fighter jet called the X-BAT. The project...
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Kanu AI emerges from stealth with $11.7M to turn employee workflows into custom software
Karan Grover is CEO of the new Seattle startup Kanu AI. (Photo via PR Newswire) Seattle-based Kanu AI announced $11.7 million in new funding on Wednesday to expand a platform that automatically turns everyday employee tasks into custom, enterprise-grade software. Trilogy Equity Partners led the round, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z speedrun, BMW i Ventures, and Accel....
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Pay-i rebrands as Ascerta and raises $18M to help enterprises track AI business value
Ascerta co-founders, from left: CTO Doron Holan, CEO David Tepper, and COO Erik Winters. (Ascerta Photos) Bellevue, Wash.-based startup Pay-i is rebranding as Ascerta and raising $18 million in new funding to expand its platform beyond AI cost tracking into measuring overall business ROI. The Series A round was led by Dell Technologies Capital, with participation from Hitachi Ventures, BGV,...
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Fresh figures suggest Washington’s space industry has doubled its economic impact … again
Analysts have traced the economic impact produced by scores of space ventures in Washington state. (Space Northwest Illustration) The preliminary results of a study commissioned by Space Northwest, an association focused on regional space ventures, suggest that Washington state’s space economy contributes $8.1 billion in direct economic output annually. The newly reported figures show that...
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‘I’m not sure we’d make the same decision’: A rocket maker’s reality check for the Seattle region
Stoke Space CEO Andy Lapsa speaks Monday at a Creative Destruction Lab-Seattle event at Alexandria’s Eastlake Avenue building in Seattle, calling on Washington state to do more to support the next generation of founders. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Making the entrepreneurial leap is hard enough, let alone launching a company into orbit. Andy Lapsa gave up a well-paying job, spent his...
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‘Losing a piece of my life’: As Amazon’s Mechanical Turk shuts down, gig workers recall the HITs
(Amazon logo via mturk.com; Claude Opus 5.5 Illustration) An early pillar of the gig economy and the hidden labor behind modern tech is officially coming to an end as Amazon is permanently shuttering Mechanical Turk on Wednesday after 21 years in operation. Launched in 2005 as a platform where human workers could perform quick digital chores that early software couldn’t handle, the...
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Meadow AI lands $7M to scale ‘digital secret shopper’ platform for physical retailers and restaurants
Meadow AI’s co-founders, from left: Dragos Velicanu, Max Jai Sim and Abbas Guvenilir. (Meadow AI Photo) Seattle startup Meadow AI has raised $7 million in new funding to scale its AI-powered operational software for physical retailers and restaurants. The seed round was led by Ulu Ventures, with participation from York IE, Flying Fish, TenOneTen Ventures, Leadout Capital, and Wedbush...
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Climate Week NYC: Amazon’s Kara Hurst on AI data centers; Earthshot’s Jason Knauf on climate optimism
From left: Franco Rodríguez Viau, CEO and co-founder of Satellites on Fire; Lisa Stiffler, Geekwire reporter and Positive Charge host; Kara Hurst, chief sustainability officer for Amazon; and Jason Knauf LVO, CEO of The Earthshot Prize, at a Climate Week NYC session held at The Climate Pledge Hub on Sept. 24, 2026. (GeekWire Photo / Laura Scott) Subscribe to Positive Charge: Apple...
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Washington governor sets up space council to boost business ventures targeting the final frontier
Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson kicks off the Washington Space Council, surrounded by the council’s members and 10-year-old Sebastian Yu. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson has created a public-private council to elevate the Evergreen State’s profile as regional clusters compete for primacy in America’s space industry. The 23-member Washington Space Council was...
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Seattle-based sales tech company Outreach to move HQ to Adobe’s campus in Fremont neighborhood
701 N. 34th St. in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood, where Outreach plans to move its HQ early next year. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Outreach confirmed plans to move its headquarters from Interbay to Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood early next year, joining a campus that Adobe has anchored since the late 1990s. The sales technology company, which was valued at more than $4.4 billion in a...
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Seattle outranks major global cities to land at No. 4 in report that cites economy, quality of life, and more
The Seattle skyline and waterfront along Elliott Bay. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Seattle, take a bow. You’re officially trailing only New York, London, and Paris on the world stage. The Emerald City landed at No. 4 overall in the newly released Oxford Economics Global Cities Index 2026, which scored 1,000 major urban centers across economics, human capital, quality of life,...
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Nimbus Aerospace tests quarter-scale prototype in Oregon as hybrid-electric race ramps up
Nimbus Aerospace’s NX1, a one-quarter size prototype in a test flight this summer near the Pendleton Airport UAS Range in Oregon. (Nimbus Photo) The team at Seattle-based Nimbus Aerospace had planned to finish testing its quarter-scale prototype earlier in the summer, but struggled to schedule one of the few pilots skilled in remote-controlled flight. “Not many people wanted to fly this...
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‘It’s not a lost cause’: Seattle Aquarium CEO Meg McCann on saving the ocean one visitor at a time
Seattle Aquarium President and CEO Meg McCann. (Seattle Aquarium Photo) At first glance, Meg McCann would not be the obvious choice to run the Seattle Aquarium, one of the city’s top attractions, drawing 1 million annual visitors to the waterfront and supporting critical research in marine conservation. McCann, a trial lawyer by training, has overseen an organization serving survivors of...
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An ethicist’s take: What philosophy teaches us about the limits we should be setting on AI agents
What an off-limits list might look like, before the agents start working. (GeekWire Illustration / GPT-5.6 Sol) It’s difficult, to put it mildly, to figure out just what we ought to be concerned about today in AI’s widespread adoption given the expanding list of recent warnings around its potential harms. At this point, just from the last few weeks, we have the former Anthropic researcher...
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Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of Sept. 20, 2026
Get caught up on the latest technology and startup news from the past week. Here are the most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of Sept. 20, 2026. Sign up to receive these updates every Sunday in your inbox by subscribing to our GeekWire Weekly email newsletter. Most popular stories on GeekWire Amazon says it has cut off Meta’s new Muse personal AI agent from shopping on Amazon.com,...
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