All results
For years, Black women have been told that education, adaptability, and professionalism would create economic stability. But new labor data suggests that even being highly educated and deeply embedded in the workforce is not enough to shield them from economic instability when systems shift. According to analysis published by the Feminist Majority Foundation, Black women’s unemployment had climbed to 6.4% in April 2025, well above the national unemployment rate reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meanwhile, white women’s unemployment remained significantly lower at 3.8%. Now in 2026 those numbers have reached 7.3% and 3.7%, respectively. How AI And DEI Rollbacks Are Impacting The Workforce The numbers arrive at a moment when companies are aggressively integrating AI into workplace operations while simultaneously scaling back Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs, as AFROTECH™ previously reported. Together, those shifts are creating a labor market where Black women...
Spotify is rolling out a new AI product aimed at improving the experience for music fans in partnership with Universal Music Group (UMG). Billboard reports that Spotify users will be able to create covers and remixes of songs by participating UMG artists and songwriters. The update was announced during Spotify’s Investor Day presentation on May 21 and is made possible by a licensing deal that covers recorded music and publishing rights, enabling Spotify to release generative AI music tools. Spotify sees this as an opportunity to increase exposure and revenue for UMG artists. “Solving hard problems for music is what Spotify does, and fan-made covers and remixes are next. What we’re building is grounded in consent, credit, and compensation for the artists and songwriters that take part. Through each technological transformation, we have worked together with Sir Lucian and his team to evolve the music ecosystem into a richer, more beneficial experience for fans and a more rewarding...
Waymo will pause operations in several cities. As AFROTECH™ previously reported, Waymo, owned by Alphabet Inc., is an autonomous ride-hailing service that calls itself the “world’s most experienced driver.” The company, co-led by Tekedra Mawakana, says its technology uses detailed custom maps, real-time sensor data, and AI to determine its position on the road at all times, rather than relying solely on GPS. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Waymo (@waymo) Waymo has served more than 20 million riders and completes more than 400,000 rides a week. However, it will pause operations in Atlanta after one of its robotaxis drove through a flooded street, according to TechCrunch. “Safety is Waymo’s top priority, both for our riders and everyone we share the road with. During a period of intense rain yesterday in Atlanta, an unoccupied Waymo vehicle encountered a flooded road and stopped,” the company said in a statement, per TechCrunch. The vehicle has since been recovered...
will.i.am was an early investor in several tech companies, including OpenAI. In 2025, Fortune estimated his net worth at $50 million, attributing it to his music career and investments in early-stage companies such as Tesla, Pinterest, and OpenAI. “I did some pretty cool investments in the past,” will.i.am told Fortune. He described OpenAI as one of his smartest investments to date. OpenAI launched in 2015 with support from billionaires such as Reid Hoffman, Elon Musk, and Peter Thiel, as well as Amazon Web Services and other industry giants. Hoffman played a significant part in will.i.am’s investment in AI, according to Forbes. Hoffman initially wanted the musician to invest in OpenAI’s rival, Inflection AI, which he co-founded with Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman. “One day, Reid called me and said, ‘There’s this guy you should meet named Mustafa. I know you’re interested in AI, and there’s not that many people from the industry that have the vernacular and understanding of the...
Wyclef Jean has big plans ahead for his music career. In an interview with Yahoo Finance, Jean, a Haitian-born musician, took a blast to the past to reflect on making music in his basement, where he built a studio. One of Hip-Hop’s best-selling albums, The Fugees’ 1996 album “The Score,” was created there. According to BET, the album, which includes “Killing Me Softly With His Song” and “Ready or Not,” sold 22 million copies. “‘The Score,’ one of the, you know, the biggest Hip-Hop selling albums, is done out of a basement. So, which is normal today. For a young kid to have a computer, be in their room, and literally lay out the entire music,” Jean told Yahoo Finance. “ We was doing this 30 years ago inside of a basement and making it cool to do music in your bedroom. ‘Ready or Not,’ I did that in my small little bedroom in the Booga basement in the hood.” Now, that many years later, Jean is not only planning to release a new album but also to explore nearly every genre he has...
YouTube has taken a page from Sora’s playbook. Sora’s Remix tool, which was developed by OpenAI, used natural-language commands to edit pre-existing videos, allowing users to add, remove, or edit objects in a video, according to information shared in a YouTube video. Sora also had a “Cameos” feature , which allowed users to create and use their likenesses in AI-generated videos. However, those features are no longer available on Sora, and its web app shut down on April 26, 2026, according to the company. YouTube, owned by Google and reaching 3 billion users, is now picking up the mantle by rolling out its own “Remix” feature for Shorts. Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced the feature at its Google I/O event Tuesday, May 19. Remixing with Gemini Omni According to The Hollywood Reporter, users will be able to write prompts and remix an original short to change its style or add themselves to the video, without altering the video’s original context. YouTube will leverage Gemini Omni,...
An NBA dinner led Tristan Thompson to invest in a major AI company. In an interview on “Market Bubble,” Thompson, a fourth overall draft pick in 2011 who last played during the 2024-25 season, reflected on a specific time in the league that led him to strengthen his investment portfolio. The unrestricted free agent recalled attending several dinners that gave him opportunities to sit down with individuals in Silicon Valley when playing against San Francisco’s Golden State Warriors. He heard discussions around the future of technology, particularly AI. That led him to invest early in Anthropic, an AI safety and research company that developed Claude and is currently in discussions to raise $30 billion at a $900 billion valuation , according to Bloomberg. “I was like, ‘Hey, man, I like what you’re, what you’re talking about. You sound like you’re cool. You sound, like, transparent.’ … I’m like, ‘All right, man, here’s a check. I wanna get in the game.’ And then from there, they just...
Josiah Faison is leveraging tech to help people preserve their stories. The Maryland native originally planned for a career in financial management. During his sophomore year at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), his grandmother became terminally ill with cancer. Faison wanted to ensure her lived experiences would continue to live on. This prompted him to search online for different ways to capture the family history. He was met with no luck. So, he planned to create a time capsule that would include letters and recordings detailing her life. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he was unable to make it home, and his grandmother passed away. “All my family’s history was lost. All the stories that she’d been trying to preserve, all the stories she had done to me, were all just gone . That caused me to actually change gears,” Faison told AFROTECH™. Faison workshopped the idea, which centered on history preservation through photography, video, and audio. In the summer of his...
Brandon Hill has raised millions in funding guided by the mission of ensuring “every supermarket in America autonomous,” he said on LinkedIn. For many founders, their lived experiences help shape the ventures they go on to create. Hill is a third-generation grocer with grandparents who owned a small store in Oklahoma and parents who’ve had careers in the grocery industry , Fortune reports . In 2020, Hill first stumbled upon the grocery industry’s outdated administrative systems while visiting his parents in Minnesota. He found a stack of various paper invoices and wholesale catalogs. “I looked at these books, and I said, ‘Okay, what is this? A relic or a souvenir from you guys when you guys were my age?’ And they said, ‘No, this is how grocery stores operate here in 2020,’” Hill explained, according to Fortune. This informed Vori, an AI-powered grocery startup for independent grocers. It launched in 2019 in East Palo Alto with a team of Stanford engineers from SpaceX, Google, and...
Will.i.am has completed his first semester teaching an agentic AI course at Arizona State University (ASU). As previously reported by AFROTECH™, will.i.am, founder and CEO of FYI.AI, began a 15-week journey in January 2026 to teach students “The Agentic Self” at ASU’s The GAME School. Will.i.am said the opportunity marked a new era in his life. “From creating global unifying music to establishing my i.am Angel Foundation, which empowers 15,000 Los Angeles area high school students with STEM skills and sends thousands to college, I find the answer to my question ‘Where’s the love?’ in this course,” he said. When considering the future — and the next generation — he has not overlooked AI’s role. He views the ASU course as “a solution to AI replacing human jobs.” Across two locations and 16 class meetings, he taught 75 students ages 18 to 70 years, including undergraduate, graduate, and non-degree learners, according to a press release shared with AFROTECH™. Students learned about a...
A new study has been conducted to determine where audiences get news and information. The study — titled “The Evolving News Landscape: Comparing Media Habits and Trust Between Teens and Adults” — was conducted in February by the Media Insight Project, which is a collaboration of the The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research; the American Press Institute; Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications; and the Local News Network at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism. It surveyed 2,101 individuals aged 13 and older. Its findings determined that all generations obtained news and information from influencers or independent creators. In fact, 57% of respondents affirmed they referred to influencers or independent creators for news and information at least sometimes. Additionally, 81% of respondents ages 13 to 17 stated they receive their news and information from influencers, and 57%...
Apple has agreed to settle a multi-million-dollar advertising class-action lawsuit. Lawsuit Explained The lawsuit alleges that the Big Tech company falsely advertised its AI features, branded as Apple Intelligence, including its Siri voice assistant, as BBC News reports. Siri specifically was allegedly marketed as a “limited voice interface into a full-fledged personal AI assistant,” a claim the lawsuit argues was false. “The iPhone 16 was delivered to consumers without ‘Apple Intelligence,’ and Enhanced Siri never came,” the lawyers wrote in the lawsuit, per BBC News. An Apple spokeswoman confirmed the lawsuit centers on “the availability of two additional features” during the company’s rollout of Apple Intelligence. The lawsuit also alleges that Apple’s push into AI was driven by a desire to gain a competitive edge in the Big Tech race against rivals such as OpenAI and Anthropic. “Apple promoted AI capabilities that did not exist at the time, do not exist now, and will not exist...
Jamie Foxx is investing in AI. He has added ElevenLabs to his portfolio. ElevenLabs is a free AI voice generator and voice agents platform, as described on its website, on a mission “that redefines how businesses communicate with their audiences,” according to a blog post. Its mission, it says, will be aided by its investors, who are experts within their fields. Foxx joins a group that participated in the third close of ElevenLabs’ Series D funding round, following its crossing of $500 million in annual recurring revenue in 2026, per the blog. The funding will support research and the scaling of its platform both domestically and abroad. Planned updates include combining image and video generation with audio tools to support creatives and marketing teams, the source notes. Additionally, the company says it is developing agents that can better serve customers and employees across voice, chat, email, and other channels. New investors also include BlackRock, Wellington, NVIDIA (via...
A new study compares the performance of human and AI doctors working in the ER. Science Journal published a study led by physicians and computer scientists at Harvard Medical School, Stanford University, the University of Minnesota Medical School, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and more. The study compared how Open AI’s o1 large language model (LLM) performed against various physicians “at different levels of training and experience on a variety of clinical cases, ranging from published patient vignettes to evaluations of brand-new emergency room patients, as well as on clinical tasks including both diagnosis and planning of clinical management.” The Guardian reported that one experiment examined 76 patients at the emergency room of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA, comparing diagnoses made by AI and human doctors. Both were given the same electronic health records, including vital signs, demographic data, and patient notes. The AI identified the exact or...
Aaron Jordan wants to position vendors as headliners. The Louisville, KY native — who also splits his time between New York and Miami — is using technology to enhance the vendor experience at events. His approach is informed by both direct conversations with vendors and his own experience as the founder of the Louisville Juneteenth Festival, which launched in the wake of COVID-19 and was sunset in 2025. “I learned how to do corporate sponsorships and had a fundraiser, and we [reached] 10,000 attendees. It became the official Juneteenth celebration for the state of Kentucky,” Jordan told AFROTECH™. “And we received Governor acclamations and Kentucky state senate proclamations as the official celebration for Juneteenth. But hosting the festival, I realized I was losing out on revenue, and also I was burnt out all the time after the festival.” “We had over a hundred vendors. We’re supporting small businesses, and they’re making tons of money each year, and we had no insight [into] any...