AI News from April 18, 2026

Former CEO and CFO of iLearningEngines, a bankrupt AI education firm, were indicted on 10 counts of fraud for allegedly misrepresenting the company's AI capabilities.

Supply chain AI startup Loop secured a $95 million Series C to help companies predict and prevent disruptions before they impact operations.

Dairy Queen is rolling out an AI-powered chatbot to dozens of its drive-thru locations across the US and Canada, joining a wave of fast food AI adoption.

The AI industry faces a growing public backlash as executives like Altman, Amodei, and Pichai diverge on how to frame AI's impact and inevitability.

Google's updated AI Mode in Search can now contact local retailers on users' behalf to check product availability at nearby stores.

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is in talks to raise at least $300 million at a $10 billion valuation, signaling growing investor confidence in China's AI sector.

Nvidia rival Cerebras Systems disclosed its US IPO filing, moving closer to public markets as demand for AI chips surges across the industry.

OpenAI's CPO Kevin Weil and Sora team lead Bill Peebles are leaving as the company shuts down Sora and folds its science team in a strategic pivot.

A chart by METR, a nonprofit AI organization, has become an industrywide obsession as it tracks the rapid development of large AI systems.

The main AI usage metric, tokens, looks explosive on paper but may be significantly inflated; only Anthropic is seen as being realistic about demand.

The narrative around AI and those controlling it has reached a crescendo, with growing public frustration over labor, environment, and cost impacts.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is developing an AI assistant trained to handle select CEO responsibilities, signaling a new era of AI-augmented executive leadership.

The US Federal Aviation Administration has brought in Palantir, Thales, and Air Space Intelligence to compete on a new artificial intelligence tool.

Netflix is launching a TikTok-like vertical video feed this month and plans to use AI broadly for content creation and recommendations.

Anthropic launched Claude Design, an AI tool that converts text prompts into interactive prototypes, challenging Figma alongside its most powerful public model, Claude Opus 4.7.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei met with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles to discuss the new Claude Mythos AI model amid an ongoing dispute with the Pentagon.