Anthropic Commits 5% of Its Shares to a New Public Benefit Fund

Anthropic announced Sunday that it is creating a “public benefit fund” to give the company “increased flexibility and scale” to support projects for societal good, TechCrunch reported. Anthropic will commit 5% of its shares to the fund, which is structured as a wholly owned entity within the company, with the option to contribute an additional 2% for every 50% increase in Anthropic’s value. The company offered broad ideas for using the money, such as “large donations to traditional nonprofits or direct distributions to specific populations.” It said it will share details on the fund’s structure and governance in the coming months.

Mercedes-Benz and Nvidia Expand Partnership on Automated Driving

Mercedes-Benz and Nvidia have extended their strategic partnership to advance the next generation of automated driving systems, Robotics & Automation News reported Monday. The collaboration pairs the Mercedes-Benz MB.OS operating system with Nvidia’s Hyperion in-vehicle computing and sensor architecture, its Alpamayo full-stack driving software with AI reasoning capabilities, and Nvidia Halos, which adds a parallel safety stack for redundancy. The technologies support advanced driver assistance and future SAE Level 4 applications. “Nvidia is our most important strategic partner in automated driving,” said Jörg Burzer, Mercedes-Benz chief technology officer for development and procurement. Mercedes-Benz also uses Nvidia technology for vehicle engineering simulation and in its MO360 digital production ecosystem.

Disney Agrees to Hire Most of Character.AI’s Workforce

Disney has agreed to make employment offers to at least 60 Character.AI employees, the majority of the chatbot startup’s workforce, paying them an estimated $60 million in annual compensation, according to a legal filing spotted by Bloomberg and reported Sunday by TechCrunch. Character.AI filed for bankruptcy last week. The filing says the “vast majority” of employees offered Disney jobs accepted them, but the agreement is a stalking horse bid, so another company could come forward with a higher offer. Character.AI’s former CEO, Karandeep Anand, recently became Disney’s first CTO. The filing says the startup has been hobbled by high costs and “potential litigation-related liabilities and regulatory engagement.”

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe Signals Ambitions Beyond Building EVs

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe wants the company to be much more than an electric vehicle maker, TechCrunch’s Kirsten Korosec wrote Sunday after interviewing him at TechCrunch Disrupt. Rivian has developed its own AI models to power its in-vehicle assistant, is building an end-to-end automated driving stack for its vehicles and future robotaxis through a partnership with Uber, and is developing a custom 5 nm processor with Arm and TSMC. Scaringe talked of expanding Rivian’s $5.8 billion joint technology venture with VW Group to cover AI and autonomy, and of licensing Rivian’s technology to “many different brands.” Rivian also owns 31% of Mind Robotics, an industrial robotics startup Scaringe founded.

Origin Emerges From Stealth with $20 Million for Construction Robots

Origin, a physical AI company building general-purpose robots for interior construction, has emerged from stealth with $20 million in total funding co-led by Accel and Zacua Ventures, Robotics & Automation News reported Monday. The money will mainly go toward deploying its flagship OG-1 robot, which autonomously applies compound, sands and primes walls, and toward pilots in the US and Europe, including with two of the largest US drywall finishing contractors. OG-1 is powered by Origin’s Construction Action Model, a foundation model built specifically for construction. CEO Yogesh Ghaturle said the robots are “already working at three times human speed.” Origin is targeting 150 robots deployed by the end of 2027.

QCraft and HERE Technologies Partner to Expand Autonomous Driving in Europe

Autonomous driving company QCraft has signed a memorandum of understanding with mapping and location data platform HERE Technologies at HERE Directions 2026 in Munich, Robotics & Automation News reported Monday. The companies will explore how HERE’s map data can work with QCraft’s navigation-assisted driving technology, aiming to speed local validation and rollout in Europe and other markets. HERE’s location platform powers 238 million vehicles, more than 63 million of which use its data for driver assistance and automated driving. QCraft says its driver assistance systems are in more than one million vehicles and that it has worked with more than 10 automakers on more than 40 vehicle models.

ESA’s Hera Nears Rendezvous with Asteroid Struck by NASA’s DART

The European Space Agency’s Hera mission is one month from a rendezvous with the binary asteroid pair Dimorphos and Didymos, IEEE Spectrum reported Sunday. NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test slammed into Dimorphos in 2022, shortening its original 11-hour, 55-minute orbit by about 32 minutes, and Hera will provide a follow-up view of the results. In November and December, Hera will acquire baseline measurements of the asteroids from 25 to 30 kilometers away. Shortly after arrival, it will release two CubeSats: Milani will analyze the dust field and spectral composition of the pair, while Juventas will compare the asteroids’ internal structure and may come to rest on Dimorphos.

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