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☆ AI chatbots spew out nonsense too often. But there's a solution: retrieval-augmented generation.
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-16 | by ( Matthew S. Smith | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

RAG was the first," said Bob van Luijt, the CEO and cofounder of the AI data infrastructure company Weaviate. WeaviateThe innovation that's sweeping AI"Every industry that has a lot of unstructured data can benefit from RAG," van Luijt said. Courtesy of Kyle DeSanaHe said that a successful RAG chatbot could carry its own pitfalls. AI engineers are eager to find more proactive solutions that don't require constant meddling with the data RAG provides to the AI. Put simply, an AI chatbot would have an effectively infinite memory, letting it "remember" any data presented to it in the past.

Persons: —, OpenAI's ChatGPT, RAG, Bob van Luijt, Bob, van Luijt, Nadaa, Taiyab, van Lujit, Van Lujit, that's, Kyle DeSana, DeSana, Weaviate, it's Organizations: Service, Nvidia, Companies, Google

☆ Anthropic-backer Menlo Ventures is preparing for a 'gold rush' of AI infrastructure startups. Here's why.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-18 | by ( Samantha Stokes | Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Menlo Ventures has been an early backer of AI powerhouses including security startup Abnormal, LLM developer Anthropic, and vector database Pinecone. "AI itself is not new, I think it's just how mainstream it's become," Matt Murphy, a Menlo Ventures partner who invests in SaaS and robotics startups, told Business Insider in an interview. AI's "picks and shovels"Murphy and fellow Menlo Ventures partner Tim Tully say that 2024 will be a big year for the "picks and shovels" of AI. There's room in the game for more LLMsSam Altman's OpenAI has been at the forefront of the generative AI revolution. Other vector database startups including Chorma and Weaviate have also raised millions from VCs.

Persons: —, Siri, Warby Parker, Matt Murphy, OpenAI, AI's, Murphy, Tim Tully, Tully —, Sana, Lindy, we've, Tully, Sam Altman's OpenAI, it's Organizations: Service, Valley's, Menlo Ventures, Business, Menlo, Cisco, Oracle, Meta, Google Locations: Snowflake, Anthropic

☆ 2023 has been an AI feeding frenzy, here are the startups that attracted the most investment this year
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-04 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Despite an overall slump in startup funding, 2023 saw a scramble among investors to pour money into AI and machine learning startups. And the company's star still appears to be rising, despite a messy leadership struggle that recently spilled into public view. Meanwhile OpenAI's perennial rival Anthropic attracted multi-billion dollar investments from both Google and Amazon to fund a competing AI model known as Claude. At the same time legacy companies from John Deere to accounting firm PwC played up their AI bona fides to capitalize on the hype. The list doesn't include startups who have not publicly released the amount of their funding rounds.

Persons: OpenAI, Anthropic, Claude, Databricks, John Deere, PwC, Fresh Organizations: Microsoft, Google, Alpha, Technology, Monogram, Sigma, Lambda, Helsing, Metals, Eagle Eye, Amelia, Asimov, Farmers Business, Harbinger, Prins, Silo, Mistral, Alto, AMP, Management Software, Universal, Coro, Kodiak Robotics, Aerospace, Defense, Sana, Corti, Kyte, Mitra, Tech, Boss Digital Technology, Halcyon, & $ Locations: PitchBook

☆ Vector database Chroma scored $18 million in seed funding at a $75 million valuation. Here's why its technology is key to helping generative AI startups.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Chroma helps manage vector embeddings, or numerical representations of data AI models can process. The startup raised $18 million in seed funding at a $75 million valuation led by Quiet Capital. The company recently closed a $18 million seed round led by Quiet Capital at a $75 million valuation. Originally, Chroma's tech aimed to serve machine learning engineers who were training and deploying AI models. Because this limits the model's context window, this approach tends to prevent hallucinations, or confident but incorrect responses from AI, Troynikov told Insider.

☆ AI is so hot that top-tier funds are fighting to back tiny seed-stage startup ElevenLabs at valuation of around $100 million, sources say
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A16z is among a raft of top-tier funds battling to invest in a tiny British AI startup, sources say. London-based ElevenLabs closed a $2 million pre-seed round two months ago but is set to raise again. The deal is testament to the hype that surrounds AI startups following the release of ChatGPT last year. Andreessen Horowitz is among a raft of top-tier investors fighting to lead a round into a tiny AI startup that will value it at around $100 million as investor hype around the technology intensifies, sources say. Now, the startup is set to raise new funds again, in part due to its rapid growth in revenue, three London-based investors said.

☆ AI startup Pinecone was just valued at $700 million. Here's why VCs like Andreessen Horowitz are obsessed with it and other vector databases.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Vector database startups like Pinecone have received term sheets from top-tier VCs, Insider has learned. Similar to the investor excitement around generative AI, VCs are now flocking to another area within the buzzy AI ecosystem. Instead, a vector database can store and quickly find past responses to similar questions by understanding the meaning behind the statements without having to call the base model. Because the vector database space is so intertwined with LLMs, it's benefitted greatly from recent hype around generative AI and LLMs. "The LLM tax is real," one VC said, referring to the high valuations for buzzy vector database startups like Chroma, Weaviate, and Pinecone.

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