July 18, 2025

Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning, we're reading about Perplexity's quiet moves to gain ground in India; Anthropic narrowing Claude usage limits; Netflix using AI to cut costs; and Meta taking a stance against EU's AI Act. We've got much more, of course, so let's dive in!

TechCrunch Top 3

Perplexity sees India as a shortcut in its race against OpenAI: Perplexity is quietly expanding into India to catch up to its rivals as AI adoption soars in the South Asian country. Read More

Anthropic tightens usage limits for Claude Code – without telling users: Since Monday morning, Claude Code users have been hit with unexpectedly restrictive usage limits. The problems, many of which have been aired on Claude Code's GitHub page, seem to be concentrated among heavy users of the service, many of whom are on the $200-a-month Max plan. Read More

Netflix starts using GenAI in its shows and films: For the first time, Netflix used generative AI to make a scene in a show, and it says the move helped it save time and cut costs. Read More

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Morning Must-Reads

Meta refuses to sign EU's AI code of practice: Meta's chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan said the company will not sign the EU's new code of practice for its AI Act, calling the implementation "over-reach" Read More

Lovable becomes a unicorn with $200M Series A just 8 months after launch: Only eight months after its launch, Sweden's Lovable has raised a $200 million Series A round led by Accel at a $1.8 billion valuation. Read More

OpenAI launches a general purpose agent in ChatGPT: OpenAI announced the launch of ChatGPT agent, which the company claims to be its most capable AI agent product yet. Read More

Ex-Waymo engineers launch Bedrock Robotics with $80M to automate construction: Former Waymo engineers have launched an autonomous vehicle startup with $80 million in venture funds. Read More

Call of Duty cheaters complain after Activision launches new wave of mass-bans: The video game giant banned an unknown number of cheaters that were using one of the oldest-running cheats. Read More

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Last but Not Least

'Utopian' city California Forever announces huge tech manufacturing park : Solano Foundry is a 2,100-acre manufacturing park that can host 40 million square feet of advanced tech manufacturing space. Read More