Techmeme
February 9, 2026, 9:00 AM

Top News

Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:
A look at the 2026 Super Bowl ads from Anthropic, Meta, Amazon, Google, and others, as AI continued to take center stage in ad creation and AI product promotion  —  Following last year's trend of showcasing AI in multimillion-dollar ad spots, the 2026 Super Bowl advertisements took …
Bloomberg:
The European Commission sends a statement of objections to Meta over WhatsApp blocking rival AI chatbots, warning it will take measures to avoid “serious” harm  —  Meta Platforms Inc. was given a European Union warning over policies that block the use of rival Artificial Intelligence assistants …
Juro Osawa / The Information:
ByteDance debuts Seedance 2.0, a new version of its AI video generation model that can produce multi-shot scenes, available to select Jimeng and Jianying users  —  ByteDance's new AI video generation model Seedance 2.0, unveiled over the weekend, is generating a lot of buzz on social media, with some calling it a game changer.
Brayden Lindrea / Cointelegraph:
Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek launches ai.com during the Super Bowl and opens up username handle registration to let users get a private, personalized AI agent  —  Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek's goal with ai.com is to build “a decentralized network of autonomous, self-improving AI agents …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
YouTube launches a Premium paywall for song lyrics on YouTube Music, after testing it in recent months; users get five free lyrics before they have to subscribe  —  After testing in recent months, YouTube Music looks to be widely rolling out a Premium paywall for lyrics.
Iain Martin / Forbes:
Sources: AI legal software startup Harvey seeks to raise $200M led by Sequoia and GIC at an $11B valuation, up from $8B after raising $160M in December 2025  —  The startup, which develops AI software for lawyers and big law firms, is raising additional capital, increasing its valuation from $8 billion just two months ago.
Will Douglas Heaven / MIT Technology Review:
Moltbook was peak AI theater, offering less of a glimpse at the future and more of a mirror simply reflecting society's current obsession with AI  —  For a few days this week the hottest new hangout on the internet was a vibe-coded Reddit clone called Moltbook, which billed itself as a social network for bots.
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Q&A with YouTube VP of Subscription Products Christian Oestlien on YouTube TV's future, the NFL and Oscars deals, its friendly rivalry with Netflix, and more  —  YouTube is going to start selling cheaper TV bundles for sports fans, news junkies  —  Happy Super Bowl Sunday …
Alexandra Alter / New York Times:
How AI is impacting the romance novel industry, with authors failing to disclose AI use and using pen names more, bogging down the publishing ecosystem  —  The romance industry, always at the vanguard of technological change, is rapidly adapting to A.I. Not everyone is on board.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Alphabet aims to raise ~$15B from a US high-grade dollar bond sale, as it seeks to finance $185B in 2026 capex; Alphabet raised $17.5B in November 2025  —  Alphabet Inc. is looking to raise about $15 billion from a US high-grade dollar bond sale, according to people with knowledge of the matter …
Nicole Nguyen / Wall Street Journal:
How Runna, an AI-powered virtual coaching app acquired by Strava in 2025, toned down its aggressive training plans following reports of injuries from some users  —  More people are using the app to train for marathons.  Its makers are adding ways to tone down plans some users found too aggressive.

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Equals:
Stop vibe coding analytics  —  Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards.  Build once, iterate for years.
Zoho:
From MCP to billing: Updates that accelerate hiring  —  TL;DRConnect your favorite AI tools to Zoho Recruit with Zoho Recruit MCP.Catch up on conversations faster with Zia email summaries.Review candidate context instantly …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Training Data:
Inside Zipline's Autonomous System: 140M Miles, Zero Incidents
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Invest Like the Best:
Jeremy Giffon - The Billion Dollar PDF
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Big Technology Podcast:
Who Wins The AI Superapp Battle?, Apple's Consumer AI Victory, World Cup Automation Mistake
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Hard Fork:
Fable Ban Reversed + Dr. Dana Suskind on Parenting With A.I. + Prediction Market Drama
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Blitzy's Brian Elliott: Cursor And Claude Code Are Looking At Your Enterprise Code 'Through A Straw'
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:00 AM ET, February 9, 2026.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Dominic Chopping / Wall Street Journal:

Earlier Picks

Lauren Feiner / The Verge:
Siddhant Khare:
Bloomberg:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: