A US-based EV battery-swapping startup is taking its tech to Tokyo—but uncertainty around the EV transition is holding back similar moves in the US.

That’s according to John de Souza, president and co-founder of Ample, which is leveraging Asia and Europe’s electrification momentum to deploy its tech overseas.

Ample claims that its automated battery-swapping process enables a 100% charge in less than five minutes, while also being cheaper than juicing up at a public fast-charging station.

Ample’s swapping process is compatible with any type of EV, according to the company. It’s focused on commercial fleets, and has partnerships with Uber, Fiat, and Mitsubishi Motors, among others.

Earlier this month, Ample announced it would be launching a “first-of-its-kind battery swapping network” in Tokyo, the world’s largest city, in partnership with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, as well as Mitsubishi Fuso, Mitsubishi Motors, and Yamato Transport, which will use Ample’s stations to charge commercial EVs.

“It’s a massive city with a huge need for electrification,” de Souza said. “So for us, Tokyo alone is a massive, massive opportunity that we need to go after.”

Keep reading here.—JG

You may have heard of the professional website builder Webflow. If not, would you Google it? Read the potential AI overview, or scroll past it? Ask ChatGPT for more information?

These are the kinds of questions that Webflow CEO Linda Tong has spent a lot of time considering—both for her own company and its many clients, which include big companies like Spotify, Monday, Dropbox, and The New York Times.

In a world where generative AI is changing the way people navigate the web, designing a company’s online presence is becoming more complex than ever. Companies have to consider both SEO and chatbot optimization—and even AI bot visitors.

Like many other site builders, Webflow now offers AI design tools, including integrations with companies like Adobe, Jasper, and Writer. It also allows companies to personalize their sites for different audiences with hundreds of generated iterations.

We spoke with Tong about designing an AI-first website, traffic trends of the future, and why bot-facing websites aren’t getting the attention they deserve.

Keep reading here.—PK

Haters will say it’s…Firefly? Adobe is rolling out a new mobile app hub for its visual generation tools as it continues to revamp its creative software for the AI age.

The Firefly app will bring the company’s image and video generation models to iOS and Android in “a standalone experience,” the company announced last week. Adobe has also added more third-party models from the likes of Luma AI, Pika, and Runway to give users more options. And another new feature called Firefly Boards promises to make it easier to mock up mood boards for creative projects.

Adobe first unveiled its Firefly family of image models in the heady early days of the generative AI rush in spring 2023. More recently, it has turned Firefly into an all-in-one hub for AI-powered tools with image, video, audio, and vector generation, as well as third-party models from Google, OpenAI, and others.

But the company is facing a flood of competition in the creative tools market from all kinds of new AI startups, including Runway, Luma AI, and Pika—yes, the same ones Adobe’s platform now offers. One advantage it’s touted, in addition to its legacy standing, is the copyright safety of its models, which the company says are only trained on Adobe’s stock library, public domain works, or other permissioned content

Keep reading here.—PK

Remember installing software from a CD-ROM? In just 25 years, cloud computing and SaaS flipped that world on its head, empowering startups, transforming tech giants like Adobe, and rewriting business models. Now, generative AI could spark the next big disruption—and maybe even unravel the very model that made it all possible.