OpenAI is approaching a $90 billion valuation with potential new investments

Today’s Highlights:

📰 Top Stories: OpenAI chases $90Bn valuation with tons of new tech + Meta introduces Meta AI Assistant

👀 Content: Extreme parkour with legged robots + Zuckerberg discusses Meta’s new AI initiatives

💰 Funding: An AI-powered market intelligence platform using ML and NLP raised $150M, bringing its total valuation to $2.5Bn.

⚡️ Quick News Hits

• Amazon announces the general availability of Bedrock, their generative AI service w/ models from Amazon + third-party’s (Meta, Anthropic, Cohere etc.), which existing AWS customers can use to seamlessly build custom apps

• SAP launches AI copilot Joule, embedding generative AI across its cloud enterprise portfolio for proactive insights across departments (HR, Finance, Logistics, CX etc.)

• French AI startup Mistral releases its Mistral 7B language model for free.

• Cloudflare unveils AI-focused products to help customers build, deploy, and run AI models w/ a simpler AI management solution focused on cost savings.

• FedEx introduces DexR (created by startup Dexterity), an AI-powered robot, to optimize package stacking and loading in delivery trucks.

• Major VC’s are collaborating w/ U.S. Commerce Department to establish "responsible AI" guidelines for themselves and portfolio companies.

• Google's AI, Bard, faces privacy concerns as users discover exposure of private chat conversations through Google Search indexing.

• Adobe launches Photoshop on the web including Generative Fill and Generative Expand tools, powered by Adobe Firefly, for simplified image editing.

• The CIA is developing an AI tool for open-source intelligence analysis, aiding analysts to sift through vast amounts of public data.

• U.S. Army awards $250M contract to Palantir for AI and ML research and experimentation.

📰 Top Stories

OpenAI Seeks $90Bn Valuation, as they announce tons of new tech this week

TLDR: OpenAI is in talks with investors to potentially value the company at $80-90Bn, as they have released multiple new features and upcoming tech this past week.

• OpenAI announced significant updates, now allowing ChatGPT to browse the internet for real-time information, and enabling voice and image based conversations with users.

• Additionally, they are reportedly in talks w/ ex-Apple designer Jony Ive about an AI hardware project. The project's details are vague, and discussions are in the early stages, w/ SoftBank's CEO, Masayoshi Son, also said to be involved.

• They aim to reach $1Bn in revenue this year, establishing their strong financial position and supporting their efforts to continue expanding their software and into new potential hardware.

• They also addressed concerns about the misuse of AI, particularly problems in image analysis like substance misidentification and missing nuanced context. They are working to address these and prevent the spread of harmful information through AI models.

The Big Picture: OpenAI's multifaceted developments, from hardware exploration to AI model enhancement and impressive valuation, underline the central role they will continue to play in reshaping tech and business as the AI revolution continues to gain momentum.

Meta Introduces Meta AI Assistant + More AI Characters across it’s platform’s

(Source: about.meta.com)

TLDR: Meta introduced new AI features that will be coming to all it’s platforms including a new AI Assistant and AI characters.

• Meta AI will be released in beta and is coming to WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram as well as hardware like the new Quest 3.

• AI Character are based on famous personalities including Snoop Dogg, Tom Brady, MrBeast and others. These will also be released across its various apps.

• These AI characters can engage in conversations, providing users with fun and informative interactions. The move is part of Meta's broader strategy to embrace generative AI, keeping pace with competitors like OpenAI and Google.

• These AIs will be eventually available for businesses and creators, along with an AI studio for people and developers to build their own AIs.

• Meta aims to enhance user engagement across its apps, primarily driven by advertising revenue, by integrating AI characters into everyday conversations.

AI dominates Code Conference as tech leaders across sectors discuss it’s impact

(Source: The Verge)

TLDR: The Code Conference 2023 featured prominent tech figures, including AMD CEO Lisa Su, Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott, and X CEO Linda Yaccarino, with discussions emphasizing AI and its effect across tech.

• X CEO Linda Yaccarino's interview disclosed challenges in working with Elon Musk and transitioning Twitter into X, raising questions about platform safety and user monetization.

• Bumble, Inc. CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd discussed AI's role in enhancing the online dating experience, emphasizing AI's impact on matching algorithms, safety measures, and potential future uses.

• Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott mentioned improving access to Nvidia's GPUs for AI workloads, highlighting the growing availability of critical AI infrastructure components.

• AMD CEO Lisa Su discussed the competitive moats being established by the leading AI companies

• Adobe discussed diversifying GPU partnerships and harnessing AI for generative creative tools, showcasing the intersection of AI and creative industries.

👀 Interesting Reads and Content

Deep Dives

• How Microsoft is Trying to Lessen Its Addiction to OpenAI as AI Costs Soar (The Information)

Insightful Information

• AI and science: what 1,600 researchers think (Nature)

• These new tools could make AI vision systems less biased (MIT Technology Review)

Analysis and Critiques

• The A.I. Wars Have Three Factions, and They All Crave Power (The New York Times)

• So Much for ‘Learn to Code’ (The Atlantic)

• Why the Pentagon’s ‘killer robots’ are spurring major concerns (The Hill)

• The Hollywood Writers AI Deal Sure Puts a Lot of Trust in Studios to Do the Right Thing (WIRED)

• Good Judgment Is a Competitive Advantage in the Age of AI (Harvard Business Review)

• Does the First Amendment Confer a ‘Right to Compute’? The Future of AI May Depend on It (Scientific American)

💰 Funding News

1. AlphaSense, an AI-powered market intelligence platform that uses ML and NLP to make data more digestible and actionable, raised a $150M Series E led by BOND, bringing its valuation to $2.5Bn.

• Other Notable Investors: Alphabet’s CapitalG, Viking Global Investors, Goldman Sachs, and new investor BAM Elevate.

2. Kneron, an AI company creating the world's first edge AI chip that supports transformer neural networks, raised $49M in additional funding led by Horizons Ventures, bringing its total Series B financing to $97M.

3. Slope, a B2B payments platform utilizing AI-driven tools, raised a $30M financing round led by Union Square Ventures, bringing total funding to $187M.

• Other Notable Investors: Sam Altman, Y Combinator, monashees, Jack Altman from Lattice, Alex Bouaziz from Deel, Mathilde Collin from Front, Michael Tannenbaum from Brex, and Rujul Zaparde from Zip.

• Their AI-powered tech, including SlopeGPT, is designed to automate and streamline payment processes, making the transition to digital B2B payments smoother for enterprise clients.

4. The following biotech companies received major funding to develop AI tools that specialize in cancer detection or treatment development.

• Evozyne, specializes in generative AI-powered drug discovery and protein engineering, and raised an $81M Series B led by Fidelity Management & Research Company and OrbiMed.

• Harbinger Health leverages AI and insights into cancer's molecular origins to develop early cancer screening solutions. They raised a $140M Series B from investors such as Flagship Pioneering, Pictet, Partners Investment, and M&G Investments' purpose-led private assets strategy, among others.

5. Canvs AI, a company developing an Empathy OS powered by AI to understand and analyze consumer and employee feelings from unstructured feedback, raised $15M in funding, led by Fulcrum Equity Partners.

• Their platform is used by Fortune 500 companies, including CVS, Disney, Church & Dwight, ABInbev, and Netflix, to analyze unstructured feedback from experiential data sources like surveys, support chats, transcripts, and online reviews.

• It has significantly increased research productivity and deepened the understanding of key stakeholders in these businesses.

6. PortX, a FinTech startup specializing in providing AI-powered financial services infrastructure software to community banks, credit unions, and fintech companies, raised a $16.5M Series B led by FUSE and Curql.

7. Kolena, a startup specializing in building tools for testing, benchmarking, and validating the performance of AI models, raised $15M in funding, led by Lobby Capital w/ participation from SignalFire and Bloomberg Beta, bringing their total funding to $21M.

• They aim to address the lack of trust in AI by providing comprehensive testing solutions for AI models, offering insights to identify gaps in AI model test data coverage and incorporating risk management features to track deployment risks.

8. Senser, an AIOps platform that leverages eBPF tech and ML to troubleshoot performance issues in complex, distributed cloud environments, raised $9.5M in funding led by Eclipse.

9. EchoMark, a pioneering information protection SaaS company utilizing AI-driven tech to embed invisible forensic watermarks in emails and documents, raised a $10M Seed Round led by Craft Ventures.

10. Revefi, an AI-powered enterprise data platform designed to assist enterprise data teams, raised $10.5M in a Seed Round led by Mayfield (Navin Chaddha, Managing Partner).

11. Erudit, a AI company specializing in improving workplace culture and productivity by leveraging AI to provide real-time workforce intelligence, without relying on surveys, raised a $10M Series A led by Conexo Ventures, Athos Capital, Ignia Partners, True Blue Partners, and Fondo Bolsa Social.

12. Meeno, an AI-powered relationship mentoring app founded by former Tinder CEO Renate Nyborg, raised a $3.9M Seed Round led by Sequoia, bringing total funding to $5M.

• Other Notable Investors: Andrew Ng's AI Fund and NEA, among others.

• The app is designed to help users with various relationship challenges and is positioned as a solution for Gen Z and young millennials.

13. Invoke AI, which develops open-source generative AI software designed for artists and creative teams, raised a $3.75M Seed Round led by Storm Ventures w/ participation from SignalFire and Universe Software.

• The software empowers visual artists, architects, game designers, graphic and product designers to streamline their creative workflows and create assets using AI technology while retaining ownership of their intellectual property.

14. Yaysay, an AI-powered shopping app that gamifies off-price shopping by curating a daily selection of items tailored to individual preferences, raised a total of $10.3M across two funding rounds.

15. Aug X Labs released a "Prompt-to-Video" tool for content creators that utilizes generative AI tech to create videos from prompts or scripts, making video marketing more accessible. They raised $3.1M in an over-subscribed Seed Round led by Unlock Venture Partners.

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