Last month I graduated from Columbia University University after an enriching ten months as a Knight-Bagehot Fellow. Now, I am back into the freelance circuit writing stories at the intersection of tech, human rights, labor and more both in the US and India. DM for tips or commissions!

It was an honor to serve as a judge alongside an incredible jury panel for the prestigious One World Media Awards 2025 in the Journalist of the Year category. The entries featured outstanding work from around the world, and picking a winner was not easy. Congratulations to all the

NEW: Jo Ellis, a transgender pilot from Virginia, was accused of crashing a helicopter into an airliner, killing 67 people. But she wasn't the pilot. She was falsely blamed online for being trans. Now she's fighting back. My latest for WIRED: wired.com/story/a-trans-…

The implosion of the white-hot startup BuilderAI has employees and spectators asking how it all went wrong — and raises the question of what the $1.5B AI company was really selling. Read our new feature from @varshaabansal: restofworld.org/2025/builderai…

When Builder.ai suddenly collapsed observers pointed to sketchy financials and cooked books. Former employees paint a bizarre portrait of a company that made promises it couldn't keep, and touted AI advancements that simply weren't there. restofworld.org/2025/builderai…

Inside the collapse of London's hottest AI startup Builder.ai. This is a story about AI washing with the founder claiming higher AI capabilities than what was going on internally & the power of adding AI to your company name to raise funds. restofworld.org/2025/builderai…

An inside look at ex-unicorn Builder.ai's demise, which oversold its AI platform's abilities and frustrated customers with delivery delays and buggy products (@varshaabansal / Rest of World) restofworld.org/2025/builderai… techmeme.com/250730/p8#a250… x.com/Techmeme/statu…

For Rest of World’s new feature, Varsha Bansal spoke to a dozen former BuilderAI employees from India, the U.S., and the U.K. to get an inside look at the company’s rise and fall — and explore the question: Was BuilderAI even an AI company? restofworld.org/2025/builderai…

Weekend #longreads: @varshaabansal’s in-depth look at the collapse of BuilderAI, the failed startup that some analysts have held up as a potential example of “AI washing” — in which companies falsely promote AI capabilities to attract attention and funding restofworld.org/2025/builderai…

This week's great long reads from: Nick Ripatrazone Sean Nam Terrence McCoy Marina Dias Devin Gordon Varsha Bansal Alan Siegel zak is also on blu*sky Lexi Pandell Mason Boycott-Owen Franklin Foer JETVCG Piers Gelly Heather Haddon Max Chafkin Ed Ludlow Dan Kois longformprofiles.substack.com/p/edition-84-l…

Inside the world of Google's AI raters: My new investigation for The Guardian tracks the lives of the invisible workers evaluating, rating & moderating the outputs of Google's AI models including its chatbot Gemini & search summaries known as AI Overviews. theguardian.com/technology/202…

“I just want people to know that AI is being sold as this tech magic – that’s why there’s a little sparkle symbol next to an AI response. But it’s not. It’s built on the backs of overworked, underpaid human beings.”Varsha Bansal The Guardian theguardian.com/technology/202…