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☆ Salesforce unveils AI Cloud offering, doubles fund for AI startups to $500 mln
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

June 12 (Reuters) - Salesforce (CRM.N) on Monday doubled its venture capital fund for generative AI startups to $500 million and unveiled the AI Cloud service that hopes to attract enterprises by offering the company's AI-powered products under one umbrella. AI Cloud will include Salesforce's products from the Einstein service to workplace-messaging app Slack and data analysis software Tableau. The move underscores the race among technology companies to incorporate their tools with generative AI, which can create new text, imagery and other content based on inputs from past data. Along with the company's own offerings, AI Cloud will host the large-language models (LLMs) - the core software of artificial intelligence systems - from providers such as Amazon Web Services, Anthropic and Cohere. Salesforce said it plans to ensure data privacy for businesses using such offerings by helping prevent the LLMs from retaining sensitive customer information.

Persons: Marc Benioff, Salesforce, Einstein, OpenAI, Slack, Tiyashi Datta, Shailesh Organizations: Amazon Web Services, Thomson Locations: Bengaluru

☆ Larry Ellison tops Bill Gates as world's fourth-richest person, Bloomberg says
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( Ramishah Maruf | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

New York CNN —Oracle (ORCL) founder Larry Ellison is reaping the benefits of artificial intelligence popularity, edging past Microsoft (MSFT) founder Bill Gates to land the number four spot on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index on Monday, according to Bloomberg. Ellison is now the world’s fourth-richest person, with a staggering $129.8 billion net worth, Bloomberg reported. He just squeaked past Gates, whose net worth — Bloomberg reported — is currently $129.1 billion. Ellison is the largest stockholder in Oracle and owns approximately 42.9% of its shares, a 2022 SEC proxy statement said. Five years later, they renamed their company “Oracle” after their software.

Persons: Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Ellison, Gates, —, didn’t, Safra Catz, David Geffen, Musashi Organizations: New, New York CNN, Oracle, Microsoft, Bloomberg, — Bloomberg, Bank of America, SEC, Oracle Database Locations: New York, Tesla, California, Hollywood

☆ Nvidia invests in Google-linked generative A.I. startup Cohere
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Natalie Rose Goldberg | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Cohere, an enterprise-focused generative artificial intelligence startup, has raised $270 million in a Series C round of venture capital which includes AI giant Nvidia as an investor. In the new Cohere round, Oracle and Salesforce were also investors. Cohere is one of the companies that the new Salesforce Ventures generative AI fund is investing in. "We want to build that toolkit that's accessible to any dev," co-founder and CEO Aidan Gomez told CNBC in June 2022. Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang expressed confidence in Cohere, saying in a press release announcing the funding, "The team at Cohere has made foundational contributions to generative AI.

Persons: OpenAI, Cohere, Aidan Gomez, Gomez, Nick Frosst, Jensen Huang, DTCP Organizations: Nvidia, Oracle, Microsoft, CNBC, Google, Google Research, Inovia Capital, Schroders, Thomvest Ventures, Ventures Locations: CoreWeave, Cohere

☆ AI startup Cohere raises $270 mln in Nvidia-backed funding round
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

June 8 (Reuters) - Cohere, an AI foundation model company that competes with Microsoft-backed OpenAI, said on Thursday it had raised $270 million in a funding round backed by Nvidia (NVDA.O), Oracle (ORCL.N) and Salesforce Ventures, among others. Generative AI aims to make human-like creations through computer code that has processed vast amounts of data. Cohere did not reveal its valuation after the latest funding round. AI startups are a bright spot in an otherwise subdued market for venture capital funding, particularly for technology companies, amid rising interest rates and increased investor focus on profitability. Last month, Anthropic, another AI startup which has received backing from Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google, also raised $450 million in a new round.

Persons: Cohere, Aidan Gomez, Manya Saini, Shounak Dasgupta Organizations: Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle, Salesforce Ventures, Inovia Capital, Schroders, Thomvest Ventures, ChatGPT, Google, Thomson Locations: Bengaluru

☆ A.I. will make people more effective not displace them, says Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailA.I. will make people more effective not displace them, says Cohere CEO Aidan GomezThe CEO of Cohere, one of CNBC's Disruptor 50 list companies, Aidan Gomez joins 'Fast Money' to talk the A.I. boom, Cohere's recent partnerships, and more.

☆ Why ChatGPT developer OpenAI is the No. 1 company on the 2023 CNBC Disruptor 50 list
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Julia Boorstin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Microsoft unveiled new versions of its Bing internet-search engine and Edge browser powered by the newest technology from ChatGPT maker OpenAI. Of the 50 companies on this year's list, 21 told us that AI is critically important to more than 50% of their revenue. Half of the companies in the top 10 of the 2023 CNBC Disruptor 50 list feature key use of AI, and notably, they represent a diverse range of industries and use cases. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during a keynote address announcing ChatGPT integration for Bing at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington, Feb. 7, 2023. The call to slow down is, in fact, less safe than what they're proposing," he said, referring to OpenAI and Altman.

May 4 (Reuters) - Two prominent former Google (GOOGL.O) researchers who authored the groundbreaking paper that paved the way for the generative AI boom, have raised $8 million for their new startup Essential AI, four sources told Reuters. Thrive Capital had led the round in Essential AI, founded by Ashish Vaswani and Niki Parmar. Thrive Capital, founded by Joshua Kushner, is also an investor in Microsoft-backed OpenAI. Essential AI aims to build software for enterprises to use large language models, the core software of a new artificial intelligence system that has powered generative AI applications such as ChatGPT, sources said. The raise came after Vaswani and Parmar left Adept AI, a company they also co-founded in 2021 with former Google director David Luan.

☆ This English Country Home Is a Master Class in Decorating With Personality
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Antonia Van Der Meer | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

MAD HOUSE In a family home near London, designers Salvesen Graham didn’t want any room too perfect—in the British country-house tradition. Photo: Simon BrownAN ALMSHOUSE is, historically, a place of refuge where all are welcome, which is an excellent ethos for a warm and comfortable family home. Constructed to provide housing for rotating guests, the structure outside London comprised a row of rooms, with a chapel at the end. At the same time, the series of idiosyncratic and colorful rooms that would reflect the client’s “bubbly, vivacious and really fun” personality had to somehow cohere. A few of the unifying aesthetics: From a richly floral Josef Frank fabric on the family-room sofa to the blush-painted cabinets in the kitchen, “fresh, bright and breezy pinks and reds thread the property,” said Ms. Graham.

☆ Alphabet's A.I. frenzy hits startup scene as CapitalG unit leads $100 million investment in AlphaSense
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Jonathan Vanian | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Google's hefty investment in artificial intelligence and the latest boom in generative AI doesn't end with its homegrown products. Alphabet's late-stage venture capital arm, CapitalG, told CNBC that it just led a $100 million investment in corporate data firm AlphaSense, valuing the company at $1.8 billion. Generative AI wasn't a talking point in the prior two rounds because the term hadn't yet jumped into the popular lexicon. Generative AI has been the one bright spot this year, turning rather frothy in some corners. He said the money will also help AlphaSense improve its technology, taking advantage of advances in generative AI.

☆ Microsoft's $13 billion bet on OpenAI carries huge potential along with plenty of uncertainty
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-08 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +10 min

Microsoft's cumulative investment in OpenAI has reportedly swelled to $13 billion and the startup's valuation has hit roughly $29 billion. What does that mean for Microsoft's investment and broader arrangement? The structure changed in 2019, when two top executives published a blog post announcing the formation of a "capped-profit" entity called OpenAI LP. Microsoft has an exclusive license on GPT-4 and all other OpenAI models, the OpenAI spokesperson said. When considering potential exits for OpenAI, Microsoft — which does not hold an OpenAI board seat — would be the natural acquirer given its close entanglement.

☆ What's better than OpenAI? Developers shop for alternatives
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Krystal Hu | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

George Mathew, an AI investor at Insight Partners, compared the AI foundation models to other technological breakthroughs which spawned competition. As the infrastructural layer of AI applications, foundation models have attracted the most investment from venture capitalists and strategic investors. Writing assistant Jasper.ai began with OpenAI's models, but does not want to rely on a single model, CEO Dave Rogenmoser told Reuters. For example, it uses OpenAI’s model to generate long articles, and Cohere to auto-complete sentences at faster speed and lower cost. Fergal Reid, Intercom's director of machine learning, conceded that OpenAI's GPT-4 is "very expensive."

☆ Google's AI teams are experiencing a brain drain. Here's where its top researchers are now.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Thomas Maxwell | Hugh Langley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

Top AI researchers have been leaving for startups where their work can have more impact. That frustration over Google's slow movement has been corroborated by other former Google researchers who spoke to Insider. Niki Parmar left Google Brain after five years to serve as a co-founder and CTO of Adept, though like Vaswani she recently left for a stealth startup. Lukasz Kaiser left Google Brain after over seven years to join OpenAI in 2021. Sharan Narang, another contributor to the T5 paper, left Google Brain in 2022 after four years.

☆ Venture capitalists swap Paris Hilton for Al Gore
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Anita Ramaswamy | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

LOS ANGELES, March 3 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Venture capitalists are trading reality stars for policy wonks. Hundreds of top venture capitalists flocked to Los Angeles this week to congregate at a two-day, invite-only soirée for tech’s elite. For 2022, venture-backed companies collected nearly $240 billion for their coffers, 31% lower than the record $345 billion in 2021, according to Reuters. Crowds piled into the theater at the Museum of Motion Pictures to hear a reality check on climate change from former Vice President Al Gore. CONTEXT NEWSThe 10th annual Upfront Summit took place in Los Angeles on March 1 and 2.

☆ AI startup Cohere in talks to raise funding at $6 bln plus valuation -sources
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( Krystal Hu | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Generative AI aims to make human-like creations through computer code that has processed vast amounts of data. FOCUS ON NLPFocusing on training natural language processing (NLP) models, Cohere competes with a group of foundation model providers such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Gomez said the company differentiates itself by focusing on serving enterprise users, and Cohere has been talking to companies from marketing, consulting and tech to help them incorporate generative AI. Cohere is powering some consumer applications including Hyperwrite, which helps people write faster and generate articles using AI. Other foundation model providers such as Anthropic is also in talks to raise funding at multi-billion valuations, investor sources said.

Three sources briefed on OpenAI's recent pitch to investors said the organization expects $200 million in revenue next year and $1 billion by 2024. OpenAI was most recently valued at $20 billion in a secondary share sale, one of the sources said. The startup has already inspired rivals and companies building applications atop its generative AI software, which includes the image maker DALL-E 2. OpenAI has also attracted attention as an AI provider and potential Google search competitor, with ChatGPT answering queries for more than 1 million users so far. OpenAI warns users, ChatGPT "may occasionally produce harmful instructions or biased content."

☆ This startup helps Fortune 500 companies build computer vision AI models. Check out the 44-slide animated pitch deck V7 used to raise a $33 million Series A.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The startup allows machine learning teams to build computer vision AI models. Computer vision models extract information from visual data sources, such as images and videos, to help computers and machines to better interpret these visual inputs. Many computer vision models are powered by machine learning technology, but this process can be time-consuming to engineer. This helps companies to develop AI models much faster and cuts down on the time needed to manage machine learning data, according to V7. V7 labels data automatically, so that teams do not have to annotate the data from scratch.

☆ Upollo wants to stop account sharing and repeat free trials. Here's an exclusive look at the pitch deck it used to raise $2.75 million in seed funding from Index Ventures and others.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Upollo aims to convert account sharers and repeat trial users into paying customers. Here's an exclusive look at the 19-slide pitch deck the startup used to raise its seed round. Most companies attempting to stop account sharers or repeat trial users build their software in-house, Meyer said. But they focus more on preventing the use of fraudulent credit cards for free trials, rather than stopping account sharers and repeat trial users themselves, Meyer told Insider. Here's an exclusive look at the 19-slide pitch deck that Upollo used to raise $2.75 million in seed funding from Index Ventures:

☆ Generative AI Startups Attract Business Customers, Investor Funding
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( Angus Loten | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +5 min

Based on keyword prompts, generative AI platforms can then mimic these sources to produce fanciful stories and pictures of their own. Other generative AI startups offering enterprise applications include Replikr, a New Zealand startup that uses generative AI to create customer-service avatars, and Dutch startup Musico Ltd., which can be used to create original copyright-free advertising jingles. GoCharlie.AI, an early-stage startup based in San Francisco, in May launched a generative AI marketing assistant designed to create promotional social-media posts. By promising to save workers hours of productive time creating promotional materials, the commercial value proposition around generative AI has always been clear, he said. Rowan Curran, an AI and data science analyst at IT research firm Forrester Research Inc., said he expects generative AI to impact enterprises from top to bottom.

☆ Google in Talks to Invest $200 Million Into AI Startup
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-22 | by ( Berber Jin | Miles Kruppa | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Alphabet Google is in talks to invest at least $200 million into artificial intelligence startup Cohere Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, another sign of the escalating arms race among large technology companies in the sector. Founded in 2019, Cohere creates natural language processing software that developers can then use to build artificial intelligence applications for businesses, including tools for chatbots and other features that can understand human speech and text. Last November, the company announced a multiyear partnership with Google to have its cloud division supply the computing power needed for Cohere to train its software models.

The AI software told banks to deny millions of legitimate purchases, at a time when consumers had been scrambling for toilet paper and other essentials. Seasonal variations, data-quality changes or momentous events - such as the pandemic - all can lead to a string of bad AI predictions. Also to blame was its AI system learning from corrupted data, the company said. Arize AI, which raised $38 million from investors last month, enables monitoring for customers including Uber, Chick-fil-A and Procter & Gamble. Zoldi said consumer habits were changing too fast to rewrite the AI system.

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