# AI Automation, Platform Entrepreneurship, and Retail Fintech Shifts

**Podcast:** TechCrunch Daily Crunch
**Published:** 2026-03-26

## Transcript

This is TechCrunch.
This episode is brought to you by Adaptive Security, a security awareness platform built to stop AI powered social engineering.
So here's the deal.
Attackers don't need malware anymore.
They just need trust, a cloned voice, a convincing deep fake on Zoom, or an AI written fish that looks like it came from your IT team.
Adaptive prepares your company with simulations across email, SMS, and voice, deep fakes, vision, and AI generated fishing, including scenarios that can mirror your own brand and executives.
And when employees report something suspicious, adaptive can help you triage it fast.
So security teams aren't buried in false alarms.
With adaptive, you can actually protect your company in this new age of AI and save a lot of time.
Danger zurück.
Yet kostenlos aus will be.
Spotify tests a new tool to stop AI slot.
I'm Imran Shaken, your Thursday Daily Crunch, featuring three big tech headlines and a little bit of startup business news.
Starts right now.
Amazon's confirmed that it's acquired Fauna Robotics, a two-year-old startup founded by former Meta and Google engineers who are developing kid-sized humanoid robots for the home.
The acquisition was first reported by Bloomberg.
Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.
What we do know, though, is that Fauna's employees, including its two founders, will join Amazon in NYC.
We are excited about Fauna's vision to build capable, safe, and fun robots for everyone, an Amazon spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement.
The statement continued together with Amazon's robotics expertise and decades of experience earning customer trust in the home through our retail and devices businesses.
We're looking forward to inventing new ways to make our customers' lives better and easier.
Fauna began shipping its first product, a 59-pound bipedal robot called Sprout, earlier this year to select research and development partners.
This is Amazon's second robotics acquisition, at least that we know about, this month.
Amazon confirmed to TechCrunch earlier this month that it has also acquired River, a Zurich-based autonomous robotics startup known for its stair climbing delivery robot.
Terms of that deal weren't disclosed either.
Meta's launching Meta Small Business, a new company wide initiative focused on supporting entrepreneurship and driving AI adoption.
Axios reported this on Wednesday.
Meta CEO The Zuck said in a memo to staff that small businesses have always been a big part of the company's business model, and that tens of millions of entrepreneurs already use its platform to grow and connect with customers.
Well, looks like the company plans to do more in the space.
In the AI era, it should be easier than ever for people to build new businesses.
The Zuck wrote.
He continued, we want to build the services that enable this.
This is important for ensuring that people broadly share in the prosperity created by Superintelligence.
Axios reports that Meta's Small Business will be led by Meta President and Vice Chairman Dina Powell McCormick and head of product Naomi Glite.
The Zuck has asked product managers, designers, engineers, and other employees to reach out if they're interested in working on the new initiative.
At a time when AI slop is a flooding music streaming platforms, Spotify is beta testing a new artist profile protection feature that allows artists to review releases before they go live on their profiles.
Now the idea behind the new tool is to give artists more control over which tracks are associated with their name on the streaming service.
Music has been landing on the wrong artists' pages across streaming services, and the rise of easy-to-produce AI tracks has made the problem worse, Spotify wrote in a blog post.
It continued, that's not the experience we want artists to have on Spotify, and that's why we've made protecting artist identity a top priority for 2026.
Today, we're announcing a first of its kind solution to a problem that's affected streaming for years.
So artists in the beta will have the ability to review and approve or decline releases delivered to Spotify.
Only the releases that they approve will appear on their artist profile, contribute to their stats, and show up in users' recommendations.
Spotify's announcement comes a week after Sony Music said that it has requested the removal of more than 135,000 AI-generated songs impersonating its artists on streaming services.
Spotify says that while open distribution has made it easier for independent artists to release music, it also creates opportunities for mistakes and, well, bad actors.
Tracks can end up on the wrong artist's profile due to metadata errors, confusion between artists with the same name, or malicious attempts to attach music to an artist's profile.
Spotify notes that while the new feature is not necessary for every artist, it is designed for artists who have experienced repeated incorrect releases, have a common artist's name, or want more control over what appears on their profile.
Artists who are included in the beta will see the feature in their Spotify for artists settings on desktop and mobile web.
If they turn artist profile protection on, they'll receive an email notification when music is delivered to Spotify with their name attached to it.
From there, they can approve or decline the request.
Now, how about some startup business news?
Here's the latest from producer Dennis all in about one minute.
Imran, thank you.
And startup tracking FinTech Glimpse announced Wednesday that it has raised a $35 million Series A.
The founders of Glimpse were initially building a startup that did Airbnb product placements.
That company launched in 2020.
But by 2024, the founders pivoted to a wholly new idea.
Glimps, a platform that helps retailers automate financial deduction processes.
Glimpse says it helps with reviewing deductions, flagging invalid ones, and filing disputes, helping companies recover money they may have missed or lost.
The company said it works with more than 200 retail brands, including Suave and its lip bomb brand, Chapstick.
And folks, that's your daily crunch.
Today's stories were reported by Kirsten Korosek, Aisha Mallock, and more awesome TechRunch journalists.
We'll see you here tomorrow.
Same tech time, same crunch channel.
And until then, find us at TechRunch.com.
Stopp!
Raus aus der Recruiting-Spirale.
Mit Stepsdown All Jobs bekommen Sie alle Anzeigen für ein Jahr in one package to a fixed price.
So sparen Sie bis zu 75% Kosten pro Bewerbung und sind jederzeit flexibel.
Jetzt Termin vereinbaren auf stepsdown.de slash alljobs.
Stepsdown.
Einfach die richtigen Talente finden für alle Jobs.