# Congressional AI Spending and Security Shifts

**Podcast:** TechCrunch Daily Crunch
**Published:** 2026-08-04

## Transcript

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Apple finally fixed Siri, so why does it feel so anticlimactic?
I'm Imran Shaikh, and here's your Daily Crunch for Tuesday with three big tech headlines and a little bit of startup business news.
OpenAI's ChatGPT is Congress's AI tool of choice so far in terms of money spent, according to a report from CNBC.
Now, OpenAI received roughly 90% of all spending on AI tools by House offices, committees, and institutional accounts during the year ending in March 31st, per House disbursement records.
CNBC found that Congress spent around $100,580 across 798 transactions on ChatGPT, out of at least...
$113,740 in total AI spending.
Anthropics Claude trailed in second place at $13,160 across a measly 37 transactions.
Democratic offices accounted for $54,165 in AI purchases, three times the $15,782 spent by Republican offices.
The insights exclude any congressional AI adoption from free accounts or AI bundled into broader software contracts.
Congressional staffers are using ChatGPT and other tools to write memos, summarize and analyze legislation, respond to constituents, prepare hearing materials, sort through policy research, and even draft social media posts.
See, our representatives in the halls of Congress are just like us.
Several popular Samsung Smart TV apps contain code that share the owner's internet connection with strangers.
potentially putting millions of Samsung smart TVs at risk of hijacking, according to new security research published on Monday.
Now, some of these apps claim to have been installed on hundreds of millions of smart TVs in people's homes, per the app developers.
At least one of the smart TV apps was a simple Pac-Man game that Samsung had endorsed and prominently featured in its Editor's Choice section on customers' TV screens.
Now, these apps contain software that funnels outsiders' web traffic through ordinary home and office internet connections, known as residential proxy networks, or res proxies, which are increasingly being linked to cybercrime.
You see, when opened, apps with ResProxy code can turn the smart TV into an always-on tunnel for outsiders to funnel their web traffic through, known as an exit node, even when the app is no longer open.
The security research by Norwegian cybersecurity company Mnemonic describes a perfect storm of problems that allows low-quality apps to proliferate across Samsung's App Store, containing code that puts users at risk of having their internet connections tapped by a rogue app.
Well, after TechCrunch contacted Samsung with a request for comment about the research, the electronics giant said in an emailed statement that it was banning apps that share their users' internet connections and will remove apps that contain the functionality.
The move comes after LG said last month that it would ban apps that contain res proxy software after recent reporting found that around 42% of apps on the company's app store enlisted a smart TV into a proxy network.
After rounds of delays, Siri AI arrived in the consumer beta build of iOS 27, launched way back in July.
The AI assistant now does what Apple promised.
It understands your personal context, taps into broad world knowledge to answer your questions, and surfaces relevant information stored on your iPhone.
And yet, the arrival feels somewhat anticlimactic.
You see, Apple finally has a functional...
Actually, a fairly impressive AI assistant, but it's arrived past the time where such a launch feels novel and exciting.
I mean, if anything, the AI race has surged ahead in the months and years Apple has dawdled on AI.
Today, AI tools are coding and building software, AI agents are completing multi-step tasks, and AI is working alongside you, using your computer, reasoning, thinking, remembering, creating media, and more.
Being a functional chatbot or AI helper isn't the breakthrough that it once would have been.
That's not to say Apple's Siri AI isn't valuable or useful.
With Siri AI's launch, Apple delivered on its promises, and then some.
In short, it's exactly what you always hoped Siri would be, a useful assistant that lets you use your iPhone easily just by talking, and one that can answer questions of any sort instead of shuffling you off to the web.
Yet, despite finally delivering a functional, helpful version of Siri, it feels almost like Apple fixed a long-standing bug, a forever broken Siri, rather than doing something revolutionary here.
I mean, what I'm saying is, this is how Siri was meant to work all along.
The only marvel is that, after so many years of failing to perform tasks correctly, it actually works.
The general public who don't run beta builds on their devices will gain access to the new Siri when Apple officially releases iOS 27, which is expected to be in September.
We now go to the latest in startup business news with our friend, producer Dennis.
Imran, thank you.
In cybersecurity startup, Horizon 3 has raised a $250 million Series E at a $2 billion valuation, more than tripling its valuation in 14 months.
Funding for the San Francisco-based firm arrives as two major AI research labs disclose last week that their models had breached systems outside their intended scope.
Horizon 3, which has spent six years building AI specifically designed to probe networks for vulnerabilities in a controlled, authorized manner, is riding growing enterprise demand.
With AI-driven attacks accelerating, enterprises are rushing to stress test their defenses at a scale.
a gap that traditional security vendors have largely left unfilled.
The company approaches $100 million in annual recurring revenue last year with 120% year-over-year growth and expects to accelerate growth this year.
And folks, that's your Daily Crunch.
Today's stories were reported by Rebecca Bilon, Zach Whitaker, Sarah Perez, and more awesome TechCrunch journalists.
We'll see you here tomorrow, same Tech Time, same Crunch channel.
And until then, find us at TechCrunch.com.