Tuesday, August 25, 2026
The Dealer Brief #2
This week: Quantization-Aware Healing: a compressed, 4-bit model that outperforms its full-precision original — plus what's free, and what's new in the index.
What moved in AI this week
7 stories worth the click, newest first.
- Quantization-Aware Healing: a compressed, 4-bit model that outperforms its full-precision originalHugging Face
- AI Companion Robots Are Closing the Human Connection in Modern HomesIEEE Spectrum
- It Should Be Harder to Apply for a Job. No, ReallyWIRED AI
- OpenAI subpoenaed by Alabama AG over Hugging Face hackThe Verge AI
- Spirit Airlines Wants to Sell Its Data to Google. Former Flight Attendants Are Freaked OutWIRED AI
- I spent a day at a robot “carnival” in Shanghai. Here’s what I saw.MIT Technology Review
- Situational Awareness, star AI hedge fund that nearly imploded, now being probed by the SECTechCrunch AI
The software business
Funding, pricing and how SaaS companies are actually doing.
- Inside The Private-Market Divide: EquityZen’s Phil Haslett On AI, SaaS And SecondariesCrunchbase News
- Why Bootstrapped Businesses Are More Relevant Than EverCrunchbase News
- Showcase your startup at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 and book an exhibit table while there's still spaceTechCrunch Startups
- BigCommerce vs. Shopify: When Second Place Is a Very Tough Place to BeSaaStr
Start free this week
Tools in the index with an ongoing free plan — not a countdown trial.
In the index
A few listings worth knowing about if you missed them.