Articles from 2026 – Page 4 of 45

Former Seattle City Council president launches AI-powered site to track and report on City Hall

Former Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson has launched CivicTide, a website that tracks City Council legislation, publishes policy briefs and opinion pieces, and gives readers tools to contact councilmembers. The site runs on a custom AI-powered system built by Seattle tech communications executive Viet Nguyen. Read More

Ex-Zillow VP’s startup Truelist acquired by Mainstay in $18M expansion of real estate AI

Founded in 2024, Truelist built an AI-powered listing platform to help real estate brokers and agents manage, create, and distribute property listings across fragmented MLS systems. Read More

Seattle startups DexCare and Mila Health combine to expand AI patient scheduling

Seattle health-tech startup DexCare has acquired fellow local startup Mila Health, an AI agent developer that automates patient calls and texts for appointment scheduling. The deal, whose terms were undisclosed, integrates Mila’s rapidly deployable AI communication tools into DexCare’s patient-access platform serving 57 million patients nationwide. Read More

Plug and Play Seattle picks 11 startups for 4th cohort, from space robotics to biotech

Ten of the participating startups are based in Seattle, joined by Tokyo-based wireless power developer Aeterlink, which is participating in an exploratory international track to support its expansion into the U.S. and Pacific Northwest. Read More

Amazon blocks Meta’s Muse AI assistant in new standoff over agentic shopping

Amazon says it has cut off Meta’s new Muse personal AI agent from shopping on Amazon.com, citing data security and other concerns. It’s part of a larger industry fight over who controls the shopping experience and customer relationship in agentic commerce. Read More

Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of Sept. 13, 2026

See the technology stories that people were reading on GeekWire for the week of Sept. 13, 2026. Read More

Podcast

AI meets real estate: Zillow engineering SVP Toby Roberts on the future of buying and selling homes

This week on the GeekWire Podcast: Zillow’s Toby Roberts says AI agents will assist real estate agents rather than replace them, and explains how the company’s ChatGPT app works. Recorded live in Seattle this week in partnership with meetup group Real Estate At Work. Read More

Tech Moves: Ascend promotes Nate Bek; Microsoft Word ‘Agent Mode’ architect exits; TAF names new exec

Ascend promoted Nate Bek to principal, and the technical lead for “Agent Mode” in Microsoft Word left to start his own AI company. Also in this week’s roundup: new leaders at Technology Access Foundation, Zillow Group, VanillaSoft, A Place for Mom, the Gates Foundation and Juno Industries, and board seats for Joy Chik and Mike Katz. Read More

Illustration: Diamondback module in orbit with Earth's night lights sparkling below

Space hardware startup plans $125M stock offering and Nasdaq listing through shell company merger

Unorthodox strategy aims to put Seattle-area space startup in the fast lane for going public — and boost the development of orbital carriers. Read More

Twin tech founders who left Seattle for Alaska bet on an AI agent named ‘Walter’ to cover local news

Several years after leaving Seattle’s startup scene to build a “tech outpost” in the Alaskan wilderness, serial entrepreneurs and twin brothers Lee and Lucas Brown, founders of Tune, have set their sights on a new frontier: replacing the traditional newsroom with artificial intelligence. Read More

From elections to board games: Washington’s secretary of state does double duty as a tabletop trade envoy

Secretary of State Steve Hobbs runs trade missions that put Washington tabletop game makers in front of publishers in Japan and Germany. The rest of his time at PAX went to voter outreach. Read More

Fewer lab animals, better drugs: This startup wants to fix how experiments get designed

ModernVivo’s software reads millions of published animal studies to help drug researchers design their own experiments, work that has traditionally meant weeks of manual literature review. The Seattle company says customers who once spent a month on that step now spend as little as an hour. Read More

Inside Temporal’s journey to a $12.55B valuation, and its bet on building a backbone for AI agents

One of the hottest infrastructure companies in AI today traces its roots to work its founders were doing before the cloud was even a thing. Fresh off a big funding round, Temporal co-founders Samar Abbas and Maxim Fateev explain the decades of work behind their solution, and why AI agents make it even more relevant. Read More

Seattle’s KEXP eyes a second physical home — in San Francisco’s historic Haight-Ashbury

The early-stage plan for the landmark property envisions radio broadcast facilities, a roof venue for live performances and community events, space for group and individual music lessons, and a public “third space” intended for year-round daily gathering. Read More

Startup Ravel raises $8.2M to help solve clothing recycling’s spandex problem

Seattle startup Ravel isolates and removes elastane from blended fabrics to turn old clothes into reusable plastic pellets. A new $8.2 million seed round will allow the company to scale up from its local pilot plant to commercial operations and validate its tech with production partners. Read More

Startup Spotlight: Local Crew uses video and AI to cut out in-person home repair estimates

The newly launched Seattle startup is designed to make it easier to find laborers, assess bids, and hire a professional to perform everything from yard work to house repairs. Read More

Portland startup Antfly raises $2M to streamline data infrastructure for AI agents

Antfly is the third Portland-based startup for CEO and co-founder James McDermott, who previously founded the customer data platform Lytics, which was acquired last year. Read More

Oracle cuts 359 Washington jobs in latest AI-driven layoffs; Seattle offices ‘not closing’

The cuts are part of broader nationwide layoffs at the enterprise software giant and heavily impact technical engineering and management roles. Read More

How UW’s solar vehicle team harnessed the sun and hard work to shine on the national stage

Over seven days in July and 1,778 miles from Minnesota to Texas, UW outpaced nearly every competitor to finish fourth overall and cross the line as the top-ranking American team in the American Solar Challenge. Read More

UW, Microsoft and E8 back climate tech incubator targeting data centers as AI energy concerns surge

The University of Washington’s CoMotion Labs is partnering with Microsoft and E8 to launch a four-month incubator tackling the growing environmental impact of AI data centers. The program will support early-stage startups developing solutions for energy storage, efficient cooling, e-waste reduction and low-carbon materials. Read More

From school nuggets to insect kibble: How the next generation of faux meats aims to win over skeptics

As startups and researchers advance alternative proteins for both people and pets, the sector is working to overcome hurdles like high costs, consumer skepticism and concerns over processing. By leveraging continuous manufacturing and sustainable ingredients like plant proteins and insects, companies like Rebellyous Foods and Jiminy’s are striving to make eco-friendly alternatives accessible, affordable and mainstream. Read More

Illustration: Overhead view of lunar mining operation

Interlune raises $5M for initiatives that go beyond mining the moon

SAFE offering provides cash for lunar infrastructure development in advance of Seattle-based space startup’s next priced investment round. Read More

Helion funding round grows to $500M amid uncertainty over fusion startup’s Microsoft timeline

Helion Energy added $35 million to its latest funding round, bringing the round to $500 million and its total war chest to more than $1.5 billion. The capital supports the fusion startup’s effort to power a Microsoft data center by 2028 despite timeline and technical skepticism. Read More

Terry Myerson retires as Truveta CEO, with co-founders stepping in to lead $1B health data startup

Truveta co-founders Jay Nanduri and Ryan Ahern will serve as interim co-CEOs of the health data company, which Myerson helped build from a pandemic-era idea into a business with 500 employees and 30 member health systems. Read More

Uncommon Thinkers 2026: Last call for nominations for Seattle’s boldest innovators

Nominations for GeekWire’s 2026 Uncommon Thinkers Awards close Friday. Nominate a Seattle-area innovator who is challenging convention, pushing boundaries and shaping what’s next. Read More

Sen. Maria Cantwell warns of autonomous AI ‘swarms’ as she calls for federal guardrails

Highlighting recent security breaches and industry alarms, Washington state’s senior senator says Congress has “lost three years” on independent safety testing for frontier AI models. Read More

Goldman Sachs plants flag in Bellevue, opening hub for more than 125 AI and cloud engineers

Goldman Sachs is expanding its Seattle-area technology footprint with a new Bellevue engineering hub that will house more than 125 employees focused on AI and cloud transformation. Read More

Seattle’s Nuance Labs raises $50M to give AI models human expression and nuance

Founded in early 2025 by former Apple PhD researchers Fangchang Ma, Edward Zhang, and Karren Yang, the research lab is developing a single “full-duplex” foundation model designed to process and generate conversational cues simultaneously. Read More

Providence to receive $1.1B from Nike co-founder to build women’s health hospital in Oregon

Providence will receive $1.1 billion from Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife, Penny — one of the largest gifts ever pledged to a U.S. healthcare institution — to build Oregon’s first women’s hospital and expand cardiovascular services. The funds, directed to Portland’s Providence St. Vincent Medical Center and Providence Heart Institute, build on the Knights’ prior $200 million gift to the heart institute. Read More

America’s machinists are retiring, and two startup founders in their 20s want to salvage what they know

Neuramill is building software that captures how experienced machinists decide to make a part, then applies that knowledge to new jobs at aerospace and defense machine shops. The company was founded last year by two engineers in their 20s who started their careers in Seattle. Read More