Microsoft Copilot gets Voice + Vision upgrade

Today’s Highlights:

📰 News: Microsoft updates Copilot with Voice and Vision + OpenAI releases new features at DevDay 2024

💰 Funding: OpenAI finalizes its $6.6Bn round for a $150Bn+ valuation

⚡️ Top News Stories:

1. Microsoft updates Copilot w/ new voice and vision features designed to enhance the personal AI companion, providing tailored assistance, offering feedback, and managing tasks like planning events and supporting decision-making.

• The latest updates include Copilot Voice for natural, spoken interaction, Copilot Daily for customized news and weather summaries, and advanced motion control features for a smoother experience.

• Copilot Vision offers real-time interaction with content on your screen, while Think Deeper is a new feature allowing Copilot to provide step-by-step reasoning for complex decisions.

• Microsoft will compensate publishers, starting with major news sources like Reuters and USA Today, for content used in the new Copilot Daily feature,

2. At DevDay 2024, OpenAI introduced new API features, including Realtime API, allowing developers to build low-latency, AI-generated voice response apps, offering speech-to-speech experiences with six available voices.

• OpenAI highlighted a 99% cost reduction in accessing its API over the past two years, likely driven by competition from rivals like Meta and Google.

• New features include vision fine-tuning, allowing developers to use images in GPT-4o-based apps, and a model distillation tool to improve performance for smaller AI models.

3. OpenAI introduced a new "canvas" workspace for ChatGPT, providing a separate window for writing and coding projects where users can generate, edit, and collaborate more naturally with AI.

• Canvas allows users to adjust and refine outputs directly, such as tweaking emails or adding comments to code. For coding tasks, it includes features like code review and in-line documentation.

• Canvas is rolling out in beta for ChatGPT Plus and Teams users now

4. Pika Labs launches Pika 1.5, featuring "Pikaffects" special effects that allow users to create fun, physics-defying video transformations.

5. Accenture introduced its AI Refinery, utilizing the full NVIDIA AI stack, to drive the adoption of agentic AI, helping businesses scale generative AI systems and reinvent processes.

6. Major cancer research institutions—Fred Hutchinson, Johns Hopkins, Dana Farber, and Sloan Kettering—form the Cancer AI Alliance (CAIA), backed by $40M from tech companies like Microsoft, AWS, Nvidia, and Deloitte, all in an effort to break data silos between research centers using AI and federated learning to accelerate cancer treatment advancements.

7. Google is now rolling out ads within its AI-generated search summaries, where relevant products will be displayed under a “sponsored” label.

8. Google is developing AI software aimed at mimicking human reasoning, similar to OpenAI's o1 model, focusing on solving complex problems in math and computer programming, using its pioneering chain-of-thought technique.

9. ByteDance is reportedly developing a new AI model using Huawei’s chips, shifting to domestic suppliers as U.S. export restrictions on advanced AI chips, like Nvidia’s, limit access.

10. Character.ai is abandoning its focus on developing LLMs due to high costs, pivoting towards enhancing its popular chatbot consumer products instead.

11. Elon Musk relocated xAI to OpenAI's previous headquarters in SF’s Mission district, where he hosted a recruitment party where he pitched his vision for xAI to build "benign" digital superintelligence and inviting attendees to join his new AI venture.

💰 Top Funding News:

1. OpenAI completed its $6.6Bn fundraising round, doubling its valuation to $157Bn, led by Thrive Capital, with support from major players like Microsoft, Nvidia, UAE’s MGX, and SoftBank.

• The new capital will be used to expand compute capacity, further frontier AI research, and build tools to help solve complex problems.

• According to investor documents, OpenAI projects its revenue to rise to $25Bn by 2026 and $100Bn by 2029.

• The company has reportedly urged investors to agree to exclusive deals, discouraging support for competitors like Anthropic and xAI.

• This development coincides with a corporate shift to a for-profit structure, which is expected to occur 'sometime next year.'

• OpenAI also secured a $4Bn revolving credit facility from major banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Goldman Sachs, and others, providing over $10Bn in liquidity for future investments. The credit line offers flexibility for OpenAI to invest in new initiatives and expand operations, with an option to increase the credit by another $2Bn.

2. ElevenLabs is looking to raise funds at a potential $3Bn valuation, w/ investors showing significant interest as its ARR hits $80M.

3. Equinix has secured $15Bn in funding to expand its xScale data centers, focusing on meeting growing AI demands in the U.S.

4. Poolside, which has developed a generative AI-powered coding assistants that standouts for its reinforcement learning approach, raised a $500M Series B, led by Bain Capital Ventures w/ major participants like eBay, Nvidia, Citi Ventures, HSBC Ventures, LG Technology Ventures, DST Global and Premji Invest.

5. Voyage AI, which develops retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) tools to reduce AI hallucinations by using context-aware vector embeddings, raised a $20M Series A, led by CRV, w/ Wing VC, Conviction, Snowflake, and Databricks.

6. Rogo, which develops an AI-driven platform tailored for finance, helping junior analysts streamline repetitive tasks, raised a $18.5M Series A, led by Khosla Ventures, w/ AltCapital, Original Capital, Mantis VC, AlleyCorp, BoxGroup, and ScOp Venture Capital.

7. AirOps, which offers an all-in-one platform for businesses to generate and manage AI-based marketing content at scale, raised a $15.5M Series A, led by Unusual Ventures, w/ Wing VC, Founder Collective, Xfund, and Alt Capital.

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