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Meta’s speeding up the “Mad Men to Math Men” pipeline

At Stripe’s Sessions conference this week, Mark Zuckerberg pitched what he calls the “ultimate business machine () ”: a fully automated, end-to-end AI ad engine promising to replace agencies, creatives, and media buyers. You just need to connect your bank account first.  Zuckerberg claims this could be one of the most valuable AI systems ever…

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11 months ago

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At Stripe’s Sessions conference this week, Mark Zuckerberg pitched what he calls the “ultimate business machine () ”: a fully automated, end-to-end AI ad engine promising to replace agencies, creatives, and media buyers. You just need to connect your bank account first. 

Zuckerberg claims this could be one of the most valuable AI systems ever built, generating thousands of image ads and testing them in real time, but it raises a bigger question: is this the future of advertising, or just another wave of AI slop flooding your feed?

Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity () podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff and Anthony Ha are unpacking why Zuckerberg’s vision could be a marketer’s dream or creative agency’s worst nightmare, and what else caught our eye in tech this week.

Listen to the full episode to hear about:

•

How Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro managed to beat Pokémon Blue () . Max was unimpressed, but the Equity crew thinks gamifying AI benchmarks might be the way to go.

•

The countertop robot () that handles some parts of cooking for you, with emphasis on some

•

Uber’s continued push () into autonomous vehicles and what Waymo’s doing in the mix ()

•

A new venture from Brian Armstrong (‘) that just raised $130 million to develop cutting-edge age-reversing treatments, and who else is using AI () to help us live forever

Equity will be back next week, so stay tuned!

Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. 

Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts () , Overcast () , Spotify () and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X () and Threads () , at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes here () .

Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. We’d also like to thank TechCrunch’s audience development team. Thank you so much for listening, and we’ll talk to you next time.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices ()

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Science & Technology

Why Snowflake is no longer just a data warehouse

Snowflake is betting that the future of AI isn’t just analyzing data, it’s acting on it. That means a shift away from chatbots and toward autonomous agents that can actually get work done. And Snowflake is reorganizing fast to keep up, from shipping hundreds of AI features to restructuring teams along the way. On this…

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April 8, 2026

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Snowflake is betting that the future of AI isn’t just analyzing data, it’s acting on it. That means a shift away from chatbots and toward autonomous agents that can actually get work done. And Snowflake is reorganizing fast to keep up, from shipping hundreds of AI features to restructuring teams along the way.

On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan sits down with Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy to unpack the company’s transformation and what it signals about where AI is headed next.

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:17 Snowflake’s AI shift and agentic future
01:45 Why 2026 marks the end of chatbots
04:09 Cortex Code, Snowflake Intelligence, and new products
06:09 Who benefits: non-technical users & enterprises
07:35 Adoption challenges and why AI pilots fail
12:11 How AI is reshaping jobs and skills
14:39 Layoffs, automation, and the future of documentation
18:37 Snowflake’s evolution into an AI platform
21:04 Competition: Databricks, hyperscalers, and AI giants
25:01 Outro

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Popular Science

The Experiment That Tried to Weigh the Human Soul

It’s a little complicated to weigh a dying person on a hospital bed, but that didn’t deter Duncan MacDougall. In the early 20th century, MacDougall’s unique bed-scale detected that 21 grams left the human body at the moment of death. He had finally discovered it: the weigh of the human soul … or so he…

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2 days ago

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April 7, 2026

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It’s a little complicated to weigh a dying person on a hospital bed, but that didn’t deter Duncan MacDougall. In the early 20th century, MacDougall’s unique bed-scale detected that 21 grams left the human body at the moment of death.

He had finally discovered it: the weigh of the human soul … or so he thought.

Read more about the cultural legacy of MacDougall’s flawed but influential experiment:

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CNET

NASA’s Artemis II Moon Flyby Livestream

Watch the excitement as NASA sends four astronauts on a historic mission to the moon, potentially farther into space than any humans have ever traveled. Follow CNET’s Live Blog at CNET.com NASA Artemis II Day 6: Monday Is Moon Flyby Day Add CNET as a trusted news source Never miss a deal again! See CNET’s…

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3 days ago

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April 6, 2026

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Watch the excitement as NASA sends four astronauts on a historic mission to the moon, potentially farther into space than any humans have ever traveled.

Follow CNET’s Live Blog at CNET.com
NASA Artemis II Day 6: Monday Is Moon Flyby Day

Add CNET as a trusted news source
Never miss a deal again! See CNET’s browser extension 👉
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#nasa #artemis #moon #space #moonmission #artemismission

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