Articles from 2026

Illustration: Elytra craft in lunar orbit with the moon in background

Starcloud’s AI computing payload will get a ride to lunar orbit on Firefly’s space vehicle

Prototype data center scheduled to make the trip to the moon to demonstrate Starcloud’s in-space processing capabilities in 2028. Read More

UW moves Global Innovation Exchange program to Microsoft’s campus in rent-free deal

The University of Washington and Microsoft celebrated the official opening of the Global Innovation Exchange’s new permanent home on the tech giant’s campus. Supported by a $42 million in-kind contribution from Microsoft, the rent-free facility embeds UW students and researchers alongside tech industry leaders. Read More

Seattle Times journalists picket over AI, calling for job protections in contract talks

Members of the Seattle Times Union held a lunchtime picket outside the newspaper’s offices Wednesday, calling on the company to guarantee that AI won’t replace any newsroom jobs. The company has agreed that AI won’t interview sources or write stories, but the union says other roles such as copy editors and photographers aren’t protected. Read More

UW starts construction on $231.1M chemistry hub set to open in 2029

The University of Washington broke ground on a $231.1 million Chemistry Sciences Building set to open in 2029, featuring 104,500 square feet of state-of-the-art labs for instruction and research in quantum science, sustainable chemistry, and human health. The new five-story facility will replace the old Chemistry Library Building and pave the way for a full renovation of historic Bagley Hall. Read More

Report: Downtown Seattle lost 13,000 jobs in a year, while Bellevue’s tech hub boomed

Seattle lost 18,000 jobs between 2024 and 2025—with 70% concentrated downtown—while Bellevue added over 5,300, according to new Downtown Seattle Association data. Amid business claims that the JumpStart payroll tax is driving tech across the lake, Mayor Katie Wilson has moved to freeze tax rates in her new budget to give employers stability amid broader industry shifts. Read More

‘Agents are very harsh customers’: Microsoft exec warns many apps will lose pricing leverage

Microsoft’s Charles Lamanna says most business software will end up running behind AI agents rather than in front of users, leaving apps with less pricing power and customer loyalty. His comments come as Amazon blocks Meta’s Muse agent from shopping on its site. Read More

There’s a new No. 1 on the GeekWire 200 as AI and hardware reshape our Pacific Northwest startup index

Temporal, whose software keeps AI agents running reliably, is the new No. 1 on the GeekWire 200. Companies building AI software and advanced machinery for space, energy and defense lead the Fall 2026 update of our ranking of the Pacific Northwest’s top privately held tech startups. Read More

Spending management company Fraxion acquires Yellow Dog Software

Seattle-based spending management platform Fraxion has acquired Yellow Dog Software, an inventory tracking provider for hospitality, sports and retail businesses. Fraxion serves as a digital gatekeeper for business expenses by tracking, controlling and approving business expenses. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Read More

Meet the X-BAT: Full specs on the new AI-piloted fighter jet to be built in Washington state

X-BAT at a Glance: Measuring 26 feet long with a 1,000-nautical-mile combat radius, Shield AI’s autonomous strike fighter is designed to launch vertically from highways or naval decks—bypassing traditional runways entirely. Here is a detailed look at the aircraft’s specs, timeline, and capabilities as production sets to begin in Des Moines, Wash. Read More

Shield AI selects Seattle area to build X-BAT autonomous fighter jet, plans to add 4,000 jobs by early 2030s

Defense tech upstart Shield AI has selected the Puget Sound region as the manufacturing hub for X-BAT, bringing AI-piloted fighter production to the region and promising 4,000 jobs by the early 2030s. Read More

Kanu AI emerges from stealth with $11.7M to turn employee workflows into custom software

Founded by Y Combinator alum and former machine learning engineer Karan Grover, Seattle-based Kanu AI has raised $11.7 million to solve a persistent enterprise problem: valuable operational knowledge getting trapped in employees’ heads and spreadsheets. Led by Trilogy Equity Partners, the new funding will help scale Kanu’s platform, which automatically converts day-to-day employee workflows into permanent, production-grade software deployed directly within a company’s cloud. Read More

Pay-i rebrands as Ascerta and raises $18M to help enterprises track AI business value

The fresh capital brings total funding to $22.9 million for the Bellevue startup, which launched in May 2025 with a $4.9 million seed round. Read More

Illustration: Washington state map with logos for space ventures spread across the territory

Fresh figures suggest Washington’s space industry has doubled its economic impact … again

Space Northwest gathers statistics on the state of the state’s space ventures — and selects eight startups for its accelerator program. Read More

‘I’m not sure we’d make the same decision’: A rocket maker’s reality check for the Seattle region

Stoke Space CEO Andy Lapsa, whose company is building a fully reusable rocket, told a Seattle audience he isn’t sure he’d start the company in Washington state today. Read More

‘Losing a piece of my life’: As Amazon’s Mechanical Turk shuts down, gig workers recall the HITs

Launched in 2005 as a platform where human workers could perform quick digital chores that early software couldn’t handle, the marketplace became a fixture for researchers, remote freelancers, and data labelers worldwide — and its exit is triggering a wave of nostalgia and anxiety across online forums. Read More

Meadow AI lands $7M to scale ‘digital secret shopper’ platform for physical retailers and restaurants

Meadow AI develops an artificial intelligence “co-manager” platform that gives operators real-time visibility into physical locations. The software ingests video and audio feeds alongside labor and inventory data to continuously monitor team execution, service speed, and overall store conditions. Read More

Climate Week NYC: Amazon’s Kara Hurst on AI data centers; Earthshot’s Jason Knauf on climate optimism

As Climate Week NYC buzzed over the environmental toll of the AI boom, GeekWire’s Positive Charge podcast moderated a private panel with Amazon Chief Sustainability Officer Kara Hurst and Earthshot Prize CEO Jason Knauf to tackle the world’s mounting carbon challenges. Read More

Gov. Bob Ferguson surrounded by Washington Space Council members at Museum of Flight

Washington governor sets up space council to boost business ventures targeting the final frontier

Gov. Bob Ferguson introduces the 23-member Washington Space Council during the kickoff for Seattle Space Week. Read More

Seattle-based sales tech company Outreach to move HQ to Adobe’s campus in Fremont neighborhood

Sales technology company Outreach confirmed plans to move its headquarters from Interbay to Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood early next year, joining a campus that Adobe has anchored since the late 1990s. Read More

Seattle outranks major global cities to land at No. 4 in report that cites economy, quality of life, and more

The Emerald City landed at No. 4 overall in the newly released Oxford Economics Global Cities Index 2026, which scored 1,000 major urban centers across economics, human capital, quality of life, environment, and governance. Read More

Nimbus Aerospace tests quarter-scale prototype in Oregon as hybrid-electric race ramps up

Seattle-based startup Nimbus Aerospace has completed successful test flights of its quarter-scale hybrid aircraft prototype in Oregon as it works toward a 2028 full-scale build. By combining pre-certified parts, high-lift wings, and an AI certification tool, the team aims to bring a fuel-efficient six-to-eight passenger plane to market by late 2030. Read More

‘It’s not a lost cause’: Seattle Aquarium CEO Meg McCann on saving the ocean one visitor at a time

Meg McCann didn’t take the traditional path to leading a major marine science institution, moving from trial lawyer and state official to CEO of the Seattle Aquarium. Now, she’s using that policy and leadership background to tackle issues like kelp recovery, cut institutional fossil fuel use and position the aquarium as a global hub for ocean conservation. Read More

An ethicist’s take: What philosophy teaches us about the limits we should be setting on AI agents

A philosopher argues that the debate over AI risk focuses too narrowly on whether AI systems share human goals, and not enough on the methods those systems are allowed to use to reach them. Drawing on the intrusion into Hugging Face by OpenAI’s agents, he makes the case that companies and policymakers should decide in advance what AI agents may not treat as a tool. Read More

Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of Sept. 20, 2026

See the technology stories that people were reading on GeekWire for the week of Sept. 20, 2026. Read More

Podcast

Live show: Amazon, Meta and the fight over the future of AI; Plus, is Seattle still the place to build?

Amazon’s move to block Meta’s Muse AI assistant is an early sign of a much bigger fight over whether AI agents can use websites and apps on people’s behalf. Plus, veteran startup leader Mike Fridgen joins us to talk about whether Seattle is still the place to build. Read More

‘Seattle’s answer to YC Demo Day’: 25 startups pitch investors from across the country at AI House

AI House brought investors from Boston, New York, Colorado, the Bay Area and other cities to Seattle for a demo day where 25 early-stage startups pitched, many of them from outside the incubator’s own portfolio. The goal was to bring more outside capital to local founders. Read More

Tech vet takes a fresh swing at the country club with a golf and social hub in old Seattle industrial space

Shankar Sundaram, a former Boeing engineer and enterprise sales leader, said the ultimate goal of East West Club is to create a “third place” in the city that’s centered around genuine connection rather than corporate networking or status. Read More

Tech Moves: Microsoft AI exec joins Niantic Spatial; Allen fund names first investment chief; Zillow AI leader heads to Stripe

Niantic Spatial hired Microsoft AI product leader Dave Citron as chief product officer, the late Paul Allen’s Fund for Science and Technology named Brown University’s Jane Dietze its first chief investment officer, and Zillow AI product leader Nicholas Stevens joined Stripe. Plus, moves at Scowtt, ThriftBooks, Jack in the Box, Fortive, the American Astronomical Society and Yoodli. Read More

Microsoft unveils all-in-one Copilot app, taking on Anthropic and OpenAI in new push to boost adoption

Microsoft’s revamped Copilot app adds AI coding, always-on agents and full versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint as the company competes with OpenAI and Anthropic and shifts more of its AI pricing to usage-based billing. Read More

Artists, game designers and producers hit hard as Microsoft cuts 277 jobs in Washington state

A new state filing lists all 277 positions Microsoft eliminated in the Seattle region, one job title at a time. Art, game production, game design, technical art and audio design account for 77 of them, with software engineering the largest single category at 60. Read More