Figma gets a massive AI upgrade

Today’s Highlights:

📰 News: Synthesia and Figma release massive new AI updates to their platforms

💰 Funding: Formation Bio raises a $350M+ Series D and Andrew Ng’s AI Fund plans to raise $100M+

⚡️ Top News Stories:

1. Synthesia introduces new features aimed at transforming video production and distribution for businesses, enabling large-scale AI-generated video creation.

• The platform features two new types of personal AI avatars, including expressive avatars with enhanced emotional and body language capabilities, and custom avatars created with webcams or phones.

• The AI Video Assistant now supports bulk creation of branded videos from knowledge bases, incorporating custom fonts, colors, and logos for consistent branding.

• A new AI Screen Recorder product simplifies creating video presentations from screen recordings, featuring automatic transcription, zoom effects, and easy editing.

• The updated platform offers automatic translation into 120 languages and introduces a dynamic video player for personalized, interactive experiences.

2. Figma introduces a comprehensive suite of AI tools to enhance designers' creativity and productivity, including AI-powered search, auto-generated content, and quick prototyping.

• The new AI tools allow users to quickly create design mock-ups and generate content like images and text, aiming to make design accessible for beginners and efficient for experts.

• AI enhancements will also include asset search, auto-generated text, and project-specific AI functionalities

• Another new AI tool, Figma Slides, integrates presentation capabilities directly into Figma, allowing for real-time design tweaks and interactive features like polls and app prototype presentations.

3. OpenAI introduces CriticGPT, a model based on GPT-4, designed to identify mistakes by ChatGPT and help human trainers spot errors during Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF).

4. Anthropic introduces "Projects" for Claude Pro and Team users, introducing new features like custom instructions and the ability to ground outputs in internal knowledge, aiding tasks from email writing to coding, and allowing organized chat sessions with enhanced contextual knowledge integration. 

5. Anthropic is making its AI models, Claude 3 Haiku and Claude 3 Sonnet, available for US government use via AWS, touting its ability to improve citizen services, streamline document processes, enhance policymaking, and create training scenarios for government agencies.

6. Google Cloud’s Vertex AI adds features to improve AI accuracy and prevent misinformation, by using specialized datasets from providers like Moody’s, MSCI, and Thomson Reuters to enhance AI accuracy.

7. YouTube is negotiating with major record labels to license songs for AI tools that clone popular artists' music, offering upfront payments to win over a skeptical industry.

8. Consulting firms like Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey, IBM, and Accenture are seeing significant growth in AI-related services, now making up a substantial portion of their revenue, as they help businesses with AI implementation, from regulatory compliance and customer support systems to developing marketing and procurement tools.

9. Israel will launch a tender next month to establish its first supercomputer to maintain leadership in AI technologies, as the government is budgeting $250M for a national AI program involving government, industry, and academia, with 60% of the funds executed in 2024.

10. Amazon is planning a major overhaul of its Alexa service, introducing a conversational generative AI with two service tiers, potentially priced at $5 to $10 per month for the advanced version.

11. OpenAI plans to block API access in China and other countries, restricting the use of its tech by local developers, prompting Chinese AI firms, including Baidu, Alibaba Cloud, and Zhipu AI, to offer migration programs to attract OpenAI users affected by the restrictions.

12. OpenAI’s annualized revenue from selling access to its AI models, such as GPT-4, has surpassed $1Bn, exceeding Microsoft’s revenue from a similar business.

13. ByteDance is working with U.S. chip designer Broadcom to develop a 5nm AI processor to secure high-end chip supply amid U.S.-China tensions. 

14. Peacock is launching "Your Daily Olympic Recap on Peacock," offering personalized highlight reels featuring the AI-generated voice of legendary sports announcer Al Michaels.

💰 Top Funding News:

1. Andrew Ng’s AI Fund plans to raise $120M for its second tranche, AI Venture Fund II, having already secured $69.75M. Key initial backers include Greylock Partners, Sequoia Capital, and SoftBank Group. 

2. Formation Bio, which applies AI to streamline clinical trials and drug development, raised a $372M Series D, led by Andreessen Horowitz w/ Sanofi, Sequoia, Thrive, Emerson Collective, Lachy Groom, SV Angel Growth, and FPV Ventures.

3. EvolutionaryScale, which uses AI models to generate novel proteins to aid in drug discovery and materials science, raised a $142M Seed Round, led by ex-GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, and Lux Capital, w/ Amazon and NVIDIA. 

4. Etched, which is developing a specialized AI chip optimized for "transformers” and designed to be more efficient than Nvidia's GPUs, raised a $120M Series A, led by Primary Venture Partners and Positive Sum Ventures, w/ Peter Thiel and other notable angels.

5. Bright Machines, which leverages AI and ML to develop software-defined manufacturing solutions, raised a $126M Series C, led by BlackRock w/ NVIDIA, Microsoft, Eclipse, Jabil, Shinhan Securities, and venture debt from J.P. Morgan.

6. Klarity, which provides an AI automation platform that automates document-centric tasks for enterprises, raises a $70M Series B, led by NFDG, w/ Y Combinator, Tola Capital, Picus Capital, Invus Capital, and Scale Venture Partners.

7. TechWolf, an AI-driven internal recruiting platform, raised a $42.75M Series B, led by Felix Capital, w/ SAP, ServiceNow, Workday, Acadian Ventures, Fortino Capital Partners, Notion Capital, SemperVirens, 20VC, and AI leaders from DeepMind and Meta.

8. Clay, which uses AI to enhance sales and marketing for businesses by pulling data from the web and automating tasks such as drafting emails, raised a $46M Series B, led by Meritech Capital Partners w/ Sequoia Capital, First Round Capital, and others.

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