OpenAI signs massive content partnership w’/ Condé Nast

Today’s Highlights:

📰 News: OpenAI signs massive content partnership w’/ Condé Nast + Andreessen Horowitz releases its Top 100 Gen AI list 

💰 Funding: Cursor raises $60M from a16z for its AI code tool

⚡️ Top News Stories:

1. OpenAI has partnered with Condé Nast to integrate content from leading brands like Vogue, GQ, Wired, and other well known publications into OpenAI products, including ChatGPT and the new SearchGPT prototype.

2. Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) released its latest Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps list, ranking the top 50 web and 50 mobile AI apps based on user engagement and popularity, with video and music creation leading the changes.

3. Google agreed to fund $250M for California journalism and AI initiatives, to avoid a proposed "link tax" bill, but faces criticism and legislative hurdles from lawmakers and unions.

4. OpenAI has launched fine-tuning capabilities for GPT-4o, allowing developers to enhance model performance and accuracy for specific use cases.

5. ElevenLabs has made its AI-powered text-to-speech app, Reader, available globally, now supporting 32 languages, including Portuguese, Hindi, Japanese, and Arabic.

6. Midjourney's AI image generator website is now accessible to everyone, offering a free trial that lets users generate up to 25 images.

7. Google has enhanced its Gemini writing tools in Gmail with a new "Polish" option, allowing users to refine drafts they’ve already written, joining existing options like "Formalize" and "Elaborate" under the "Help me write" tool, which are all aimed at improving email drafts with AI-powered suggestions.

8. Ideogram 2.0 introduces a new text-to-image model that enhances image generation, typography, and graphic design capabilities, while also releasing other key updates including an iOS app, a beta API, and a vast image search database.

9. A group of authors has filed a lawsuit against AI startup Anthropic, accusing the company of copyright infringement by using pirated books to train its Claude chatbot, marking the first case from writers specifically targeting Anthropic

10. McAfee has launched a new tool, the Deepfake Detector, designed to identify AI-generated audio within video and audio streams on platforms like YouTube and X.

11. Grok, launched by xAI, now allows users to generate AI images from text prompts and share them on X which has led to users creating fake, photorealistic images of political figures like Trump and Harris, raising concerns about potential misinformation.

12. Agibot, a robotics start-up, has unveiled a new line of humanoid robots designed to compete with Tesla's Optimus, and equipped with AI capabilities for tasks ranging from household chores to delicate industrial operations.

13. Luma Labs has released version 1.5 of its Dream Machine, enhancing realism, motion following, and prompt understanding for AI-generated videos.

14. Nvidia unveiled new gaming tech at Gamescom 2024, including advancements in digital humans and avatar tech through its Nvidia ACE platform and the new small language model, Nemotron-4 4B NIM.

15. Microsoft released three new Phi-3.5 models—Phi-3.5-mini-instruct, Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct, and Phi-3.5-vision-instruct—each designed for specific AI tasks like reasoning and multimodal analysis.

💰 Top Funding News:

1. PIP Labs, creators of the Story Protocol, a blockchain tech to help creators register and protect their IP especially in AI-generated contexts, raised a $80M Series B led by a16z crypto. 

2. Cursor, an AI-powered coding tool that helps engineers automatically predict, write, and edit code, raised a $60M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz, w/ Thrive Capital, OpenAI Startup Fund, and Google’s Chief Scientist Jeff Dean.

3. Defcon AI, which uses a combination of ML and mathematical optimization algorithms to solve complex military logistics problems, raised a $44M Seed round, led by Bessemer Venture Partners, w/ Fifth Growth Fund, Red Cell Partners, and others.

4. Slingshot AI, which uses LLMs to create an AI-powered mental health counselor, raised a $30M round, led by Andreessen Horowitz with Menlo Ventures.

5. Eppo, which uses AI-driven experimentation to help companies test and optimize their product, marketing, and strategies, raised a $28M Series B, led by Innovation Endeavors, w/ Icon Ventures.

6. The Rounds, which uses ML to power its predictive restocking delivery service for household items, raised a $24M Series B, led by Moderne Ventures, w/ Construct Capital, First Round Capital, FJ Labs, and Redpoint Ventures.

7. Trunk Tools, which uses AI to structure unstructured project data and deploys AI agents, raised a $20M Series A, led by Redpoint Ventures, w/ Innovation Endeavors, WND Ventures, and Suffolk Technology.

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