# AI Agents, DeepSeek Funding, and Airbnb Policy Shifts

**Podcast:** TechCrunch Daily Crunch
**Published:** 2026-10-23

## Transcript

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prior to checkout, addressing a long-standing grievance among customers who often pay cleaning fees and are told they must do a list of tasks themselves.
In a new policy update, Airbnb prohibits hosts from mandating that guests strip beds, wash and put away dishes, start laundry, or remove trash from the property.
This new guideline will apply to reservations made on or after November 20th.
This change comes in response to years of backlash regarding overly burdensome checkout instructions and hefty fines for not disposing of trash.
Many guests have voiced their frustrations on social media, questioning why they should be responsible for cleaning tasks after already paying a cleaning fee.
However, some hosts aren't pleased with the update.
Within Airbnb's community forums, some argue that basic cleaning responsibilities are essential for maintaining sanitary conditions and protecting their properties.
They point out that hosts must manage the costs and practical demands of preparing their properties for the next guests.
I mean, one host expressed concern that the new policy leans toward a hotel-like model, which detracts from the unique appeal of Airbnb.
Airbnb has outlined some expectations to the new policy, though.
Hosts may still ask guests to conserve water during droughts or use bear-proof trash containers in areas where wildlife poses a risk.
The policy change highlights the challenge Airbnb faces in balancing the expectations of guests versus hosts and is a...
another step taken in addressing guests' concerns.
Just two days, count them, two days after the U.S.
ordered federal civilian agencies to remove DeepSeq's AI tech from their systems over security concerns, the Chinese AI lab has raised about $15 billion, about 100 billion yuan, one of the biggest funding rounds in the country.
Bloomberg reported this.
Potential investors include Chinese battery maker CATL and Tencent, the company behind WeChat, among others, according to the report.
The reported funding follows DeepSeek's investment round in June, when it raised more than $7 billion at a valuation of $50 billion.
The company was also reportedly seeking an additional $1.5 billion at a valuation of around $71 billion in July, with plans for a potential IPO in China as early as next year.
The Hangzhou-based AI startup is ramping up spending on AI infrastructure and open models for domestic and international markets, even as it faces restrictions here in the good old US of A, the report said.
Now, its expansion could further intensify competition among domestic rivals.
You see, the massive funding round is the latest sign of investors pouring billions into AI companies around the world, including those in China, to compete in the global AI race.
Chinese company Kimi developer Moonshot AI secured $2 billion at a $20 billion valuation in May.
Manus AI raised more than $500 million earlier this month.
DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a TechCrunch request for comment.
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Woof, Spotify had a strong third quarter, reaching 788 million monthly active users and generating, get this, nearly 5 billion euros.
That's around 5.6 billion U.S.
dollars in revenue.
But if you ask me, the more interesting takeaway from its earnings call was how the company sees people listening to music in the future and why the rise of AI agents could be good news for its business.
Co-CEO Gustav Söderström thinks the music streaming giant is particularly well-suited to this shift.
You see, instead of opening Spotify, searching for an artist, and building a playlist themselves, listeners could ask an AI assistant to do the work for them.
They might want music for a run, a podcast about something they've been discussing with an AI, or an audiobook recap that picks up exactly where they left off.
Spotify wants to be the service those agents turn to, letting people discover music and interact with Spotify through conversations, rather than just its own app.
Notably, Spotify was the first music service to integrate with Meta's Muse Assistant, and it also integrates with ChatGPT and Claude.
The market's already showing signs of friction over how agents access third-party services.
Amazon, for example, has blocked Meta's Muse from shopping on its platform, illustrating how major players may restrict outside agents when questions arise around access, security, privacy, or commercial control.
Well, Spotify's pitch isn't just that AI shouldn't just make entertainment easier to find.
It should make the experience more personal, too.
So Strom describes Spotify today as an intelligent media service encapsulated as an agent, whether you use it directly through our application or via another agent.
Spotify is now an agent that you can not only click on in our app, but talk to, ask questions of, and instruct.
We can do things today that no other media services can do, he said.
Now, Spotify has years of listening history to draw upon, including the artists people return to, the songs they skip, and the music they discover.
That information can help it make recommendations that feel more personal than a generic playlist generated by an AI assistant that doesn't know much about someone's tastes.
Now it's on the latest in startup business news, all in about one minute.
after the company launched with a $180 million seed round, and that seed round had valued the company at $1.5 billion.
So its valuation just quadrupled.
And legal AI startup Lagora announced Wednesday that it raised a $550 million Series E round, valuing it at $8.8 billion.
The company helps automate and assist with workflow tasks for legal professionals as the industry moves beyond AI assistants to AI services that help them get work done.
The news comes just a month after Harvey, Logora's biggest competitor, announced a $550 million raise at a $15.5 billion valuation.
back in March.
And folks, that's your Daily Crunch.
Today's stories were reported by Lauren Forrestal, Kate Park, and more awesome TechCrunch journalists.
We'll see you here tomorrow.
Same tech time, same tech channel.
And until then, find us at TechCrunch.com.