Articles from 2026

Opinion: The AI white collar displacement debate — doom or delay?

The AI displacement doom loop is overstated and will take longer to arrive than many anticipate. But it is coming, and we are in for major economic and perhaps social upheaval. Read More

Report: Helion is working on a massive fusion power deal with OpenAI

The Seattle-area fusion startup Helion Energy is negotiating a deal to supply OpenAI with a staggering 5 gigawatts of power by 2030 — if its technology works. Read More

10 startups chosen for Plug and Play’s third Seattle-area accelerator cohort

The companies — nine of which are Seattle based — are participating in a 12-week program running through mid-June. Read More

Sci-fi epic ‘Project Hail Mary’ gives Amazon MGM Studios its best opening ever with $80.6M

The film starring Ryan Gosling provided the best opening ever for an Amazon MGM Studios film, beating the $58 million brought in by “Creed III” in 2023. Read More

AWS at 20*: Inside the rise of Amazon’s cloud empire, and what’s at stake in the AI era

With Amazon marking the 20th anniversary of AWS this month, GeekWire spoke with early builders, current AWS insiders, and longtime observers of the company to tell the story of how the business got started, how it won the cloud, and what it’s up against now. Read More

Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of March 15, 2026

See the technology stories that people were reading on GeekWire for the week of March 15, 2026. Read More

51,600 more satellites? Blue Origin adds another twist to the data center space race with Project Sunrise

Jeff Bezos’ space venture seeks FCC’s go-ahead for a constellation that would complement TeraWave network — and set up another rivalry with SpaceX. Read More

Illustration: Amazon Leo network connections creating a web around Earth

Why Amazon’s second shot at a smartphone might not be as crazy as it sounds

When news emerged this week that Amazon is working on a new smartphone, the reflexive reaction was obvious: Didn’t they already try this? But dismissing the effort as a sequel to the Fire Phone disaster misses the point. Read More

Podcast

Microsoft Copilot shakeup, Amazon phone ambitions, and pushing Claude to the limits of LinkedIn

This week on the GeekWire Podcast: Amazon is working on a new smartphone, code-named “Transformer,” more than a decade after… Read More

Report: Amazon is making another phone, this time for the AI era

Amazon is developing a new smartphone codenamed “Transformer,” led by the same devices unit behind Alexa, with a focus on AI integration and mobile personalization, Reuters reports. Read More

Seattle’s biotech scene is world-class — Life Science Washington is teaching it how to brag

Despite world-class AI-biotech research, a Nobel Prize-winning protein design lab and proximity to global AI expertise, Washington’s life sciences sector is still learning to tell its story. Read More

Tech Moves: Carbon Robotics’ new CFO; Microsoft gaming GM goes to Netflix; Nordstrom gets VP of AI

Carbon Robotics names a CFO; Nordstrom gets a VP of AI; and a Microsoft gaming GM goes to Netflix while one of its longtime legal leaders retires. Read More

Seahawks star Marshawn Lynch had one Amazon exec on edge when he took the wheel of Treasure Truck

Doug Herrington, CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores and an early champion of the deals-on-wheels concept, once worried that Marshawn Lynch was going to crash the party just as it got rolling. Read More

Sidewalk scooter riders, beware: AI-powered ‘Lime Vision’ will soon call you out

“Lime Vision” uses a camera mounted to the front of an electric scooter and a trained AI model to detect where a rider is riding. The goal is to improve rider and pedestrian safety. The technology will make its public debut in Seattle in June. Read More

Bluesky discloses $100M Series B round raised last year

The round closed in April 2025, the company wrote in a blog post. Bluesky previously raised a $15 million Series A round in October 2024. Read More

GeekWire Awards: Billion-dollar deals, rare IPO, pharma pact, and mega-round vie for Deal of the Year

Billion-dollar deals from OpenAI, Novo Nordisk, and Palo Alto Networks are among the finalists for the Deal of the Year in the 2026 GeekWire Awards, alongside a rare Seattle-area IPO and a $5 billion mega-round. Read More

City of Seattle awards $455k in ‘Technology Matching Fund’ grants to support digital equity efforts

The winners are expected to serve 20 different language groups by providing digital literacy training, devices, technical support, digital navigator services, and internet connectivity. Read More

The rise of vertical AI agents — and the startups racing to build them

For this installment in our Agents of Transformation series, GeekWire examined the rising trend of vertical AI agents — tools built to do one job exceptionally well by combining models with domain-specific data, workflows, and context. Read More

From computer to lab to market: Nobel winner David Baker lands $7M for new protein program

The Washington Research Foundation is investing $7 million in Nobel laureate David Baker’s UW lab to turn AI-designed proteins into real-world tools. Read More

Illustration: Starburst and Supernova spacecraft in orbit, both equipped with Triton hardware

Got space junk? Portal and Paladin team up to create an orbital trash disposal service

Partnership will pair Portal’s maneuverable spacecraft with Paladin’s space debris collector for missions starting as early as 2027. Read More

Portland cybersecurity startup Eclypsium raises $25M to secure AI infrastructure

Founded in 2017 by former security engineers at Intel, Eclypsium serves private and public sector customers. It scans the hardware and firmware of laptops, servers, network devices, and AI infrastructure for vulnerabilities that sit below the operating system. Read More

AI enters the chat: New Seattle dating app relies on tech to facilitate meaningful human connections

Ada Jin is the founder of Lamu, a Seattle-based digital matchmaking service that relies on artificial intelligence to learn about users and help facilitate conversations and meaningful dates between matches. Read More

Compass drops lawsuit against Zillow over home-listing policy

The two industry titans have battled in court for months over Zillow’s Listing Access Standards, a policy barring listings that are publicly marketed but not widely available via the MLS. Read More

Microsoft nixes NDAs with local governments worldwide when deploying data centers

Amid widespread blowback against the spread of data centers, Microsoft on Wednesday announced it is abandoning its practice of secrecy… Read More

Backed by Nvidia, Seattle’s Phaidra targets data center overheating with proactive AI

Phaidra, a startup using artificial intelligence to make data center operations more energy efficient, this week announced key collaborations with Nvidia, CoreWeave and Applied Digital. Read More

Seattle area ranks No. 3 among U.S. metros in new study measuring AI growth around jobs, pay and more

The new report from CoworkingCafe puts Seattle behind San Jose, Calif., (Silicon Valley) and New York City. San Francisco and Dallas round out the top five. Read More

GeekWire 200 update: A new No. 1 and plenty of newcomers join list of top Pacific Northwest tech startups

A broader trend emerged in the rankings, as startups building complex hardware across sectors like space, energy, robotics, and agriculture make up a sizable chunk of the list. It’s a notable change for a region traditionally dominated by enterprise software. Read More