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By Stephanie Palazzolo

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Recent Editions

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AWS Doubles Down on Practicality; The Loopholes of AI

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jul 11, 2024 7:00am PDT

A year ago, when Amazon Web Services executive Matt Wood told developers that the firm aimed to be “neutral” in the large language model market, by offering several options that excel in different ways, many saw it as an excuse for being late to the AI race.Now, AWS might be having the last laugh. Microsoft is increasingly adopting a... A year ago, when Amazon Web Services executive Matt Wood told developers that the firm aimed to...

Jonathan Ross, CEO of Groq. Photo by Getty

Groq, an Nvidia Rival, Nears $2.2 Billion-Valuation BlackRock Deal; Musk’s Mystery Company Revealed

By Natasha Mascarenhas and Stephanie Palazzolo · Jul 10, 2024 7:25am PDT

The startups developing specialized artificial intelligence chips face some heady challenges—most obviously that they’re taking on entrenched giant Nvidia. One challenge they don’t face, though, is a lack of funding. Groq, a startup that develops chips that are specially designed to run large language models, expects to finalize a... The startups developing specialized artificial intelligence chips face some heady challenges—most...

Volley co-founders Max Child and James Wilsterman. Photo courtesy of Volley.

Startup Volley Raises $55 Million to Create Voice-Powered AI Games

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jul 9, 2024 7:00am PDT

If you’ve ever wanted to play “Jeopardy” with Scarlett Johansson, you might soon get your chance.Volley, a startup that develops AI-powered games that you can play by giving voice commands to your Amazon Alexa, Fire TV or Roku TV, has raised $55 million in Series C funding. The round is led by Microsoft’s M12 Ventures and Lightspeed Venture... If you’ve ever wanted to play “Jeopardy” with Scarlett Johansson, you might soon get your chance....

Art by Mike Sullivan via Midjourney

Venture’s Big Bet on Open-Source LLMs

By Julia Hornstein · Jul 8, 2024 7:15am PDT

Art by Mike Sullivan via Midjourney

Venture’s Big Bet on Open-Source LLMs

By Julia Hornstein · Jul 8, 2024 7:15am PDT

One constant over the last year has been how much money large language models makers such as OpenAI and Anthropic need for their development work—and how eager venture investors are to fund them. Last week we published this report showing that a cluster of venture firms are responsible for many of those bets, even as doubts simmer over whether... One constant over the last year has been how much money large language models makers such as ...

Harvey's Gabe Pereyra and Winston Weinberg. Photo: Harvey.

Harvey Nears New, Smaller Deal With GV After Its Acquisition Plans Collapse

By Kate Clark and Stephanie Palazzolo · Jul 3, 2024 7:05am PDT · 1 comment

One month ago, we broke the news that Harvey, a startup that sells AI-powered legal software, was looking to raise $600 million in funding at a valuation of at least $2 billion. The firm told investors that it planned to use some of the capital to acquire vLex, a 25-year-old legal research firm majority-owned by private equity firm Oakley... One month ago, we broke the news that Harvey, a startup that sells AI-powered legal software, was...

Photo via Getty Images.

What Counts As Open-Source?

By Kalley Huang · Jul 2, 2024 7:00am PDT

When Meta Platforms’ chief artificial intelligence scientist Yann LeCun last month posted on LinkedIn about Meta’s strategy of releasing its large language models for free, some commenters praised its approach, saying it was “reshaping industry collaborations.” Others disagreed with LeCun’s description of the strategy as “open-source.”“They... When Meta Platforms’ chief artificial intelligence scientist Yann LeCun last month posted on...

David Luan, cofounder of Adept. Photo via Greylock.

With Adept Deal, Amazon Copies Microsoft; Do Businesses Really Need GPT-5?

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jul 1, 2024 7:00am PDT · 6 comments

I never thought I’d say this about a nearly 50-year-old company, but Microsoft is turning out to be a trendsetter.First, Microsoft’s $10 billion investment and partnership with OpenAI early last year prompted rival cloud providers to team up with conversational artificial intelligence developers—namely, Amazon Web Services’ similar pact with ... I never thought I’d say this about a nearly 50-year-old company, but Microsoft is turning out to...

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Photo by Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images.

A Peek Behind OpenAI’s Financials; Don’t Underestimate China

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jun 27, 2024 7:20am PDT · 1 comment

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Photo by Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images.

A Peek Behind OpenAI’s Financials; Don’t Underestimate China

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jun 27, 2024 7:20am PDT · 1 comment

We repeatedly heard two questions following our report on OpenAI’s staggering revenue growth earlier this month: What percentage of revenue comes from ChatGPT subscriptions versus OpenAI’s application programming interface, through which app developers can access its models? And what are OpenAI’s computing costs?This morning’s in-depth piece... We repeatedly heard two questions following our report on OpenAI’s staggering revenue growth...

Alexandr Wang, co-founder and CEO of Scale AI. Photo by Getty.

What Scale AI Tells Us About Humans and AI

By Laura Mandaro · Jun 26, 2024 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

We’re in the throes of artificial intelligence fever, but lessons from the last AI hype cycle still linger. Nearly four years ago, my colleague Amir published two stories detailing how businesses were starting to use artificial intelligence in meaningful (if sometimes rarified) ways, from checking the health of a Norwegian fish farm’s stock... We’re in the throes of artificial intelligence fever, but lessons from the last AI hype cycle...

OpenAI Ceo Sam Altman. Photo by Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images.

Businesses Want Slower AI Models—And That Might Hurt Nvidia

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jun 25, 2024 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

OpenAI isn’t normally an acquirer of other companies but it has announced two purchases in the last week, of search and analytics firm Rockset and collaboration startup Multi. Both highlight how OpenAI is focused on enterprise offerings, and features that big business appreciate such as retrieval augmented generation, despite the attention... OpenAI isn’t normally an acquirer of other companies but it has announced two purchases in the...

Klarity co-founders Nischal Nadhamuni (left) and Andrew Antos (right).

Startup Klarity Raises $70 Million to Automate Document Reviews

By Kalley Huang · Jun 24, 2024 7:00am PDT

Read through enough contracts, invoices or purchase orders—any business documents, really—enough times, and your eyes probably glaze over. Ondrej Antos experienced it as a law clerk nearly a decade ago. When Antos met Nischal Nadhamuni at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2016, the pair went on a three-hour-long walk in... Read through enough contracts, invoices or purchase orders—any business documents, really—enough...

Chart by Shane Burke

A New (and Better) Approach to Measuring LLMs’ Intelligence Has Arrived

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jun 20, 2024 7:45am PDT · 1 comment

Chart by Shane Burke

A New (and Better) Approach to Measuring LLMs’ Intelligence Has Arrived

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jun 20, 2024 7:45am PDT · 1 comment

Finally, there’s good news from the never-ending quest to evaluate how good a large language model is. LMSYS, an organization that benchmarks LLMs, released findings last month on how the performance of LLMs changed between normal queries and harder ones that require more reasoning capabilities. LMSYS uses “Elo rankings,” a measure of... Finally, there’s good news from the never-ending quest to evaluate how good a large language...

Shanghai's skyline. Photo by Qi Yang via Getty Images.

Americans Are Impressed with China’s AI

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jun 18, 2024 7:00am PDT · 2 comments

American pundits like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt like to say China is behind the U.S. in artificial intelligence by several years. But American AI researchers increasingly tell me that these people underestimate Chinese researchers. Instead, by restricting Chinese access to American tech, the U.S. has pushed the country to forge its own path... American pundits like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt like to say China is behind the U.S. in...

Photo via Adobe Stock.

The Multi-Billion-Dollar Industry You’ve Never Heard Of And The Startups Working To Take It Down; A Look into the Mind of Vinod Khosla

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jun 17, 2024 7:00am PDT

The old adage that you should never get into a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel load doesn’t resonate in the digital age as well as it used to. But there’s no doubt news publishers’ complaints about AI startups pirating their copyrighted material has drawn plenty of coverage. There may be a solution. A growing number of... The old adage that you should never get into a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel load...

Photo by Bloomberg via Getty Images

OpenAI’s Revenue Surprise; Nvidia Could Spark a Talent War with TSMC

By Aaron Holmes and Qianer Liu · Jun 13, 2024 7:00am PDT

The biggest question our team has faced upon reporting OpenAI’s revenue growth in the past year or so was whether Microsoft was a critical contributor to the startup’s sales. Most people we talked to had assumed Microsoft was, but the definitive answer is actually “No.”While Microsoft sells OpenAI models to its own Azure cloud customers, the ... The biggest question our team has faced upon reporting OpenAI’s revenue growth in the past year...

Photo via Getty Images

What On-Device Models Mean for Open-Source AI

By Kalley Huang · Jun 12, 2024 7:45am PDT

Photo via Getty Images

What On-Device Models Mean for Open-Source AI

By Kalley Huang · Jun 12, 2024 7:45am PDT

When Apple on Monday showed off the artificial intelligence that will soon land in some of our iPhones, some developers praised the company for running many of the new features directly on the iPhone, rather than in the cloud as other companies do. Like Apple, which has made user privacy and security central to its marketing, these developers... When Apple on Monday showed off the artificial intelligence that will soon land in some of our ...

Craig Federighi, Apple's SVP of Software Engineering. Screenshot via Apple.

Apple Eyes Deals with Google and Anthropic After OpenAI; Apple Grades Its LLMs While Databricks Grades AI Usage

By Amir Efrati · Jun 11, 2024 7:00am PDT

On a basic level, none of the artificial intelligence Apple announced on Monday came as a surprise. But there's a big difference between a news report describing what Apple is going to launch and seeing the finished product, and in that regard Apple delivered a cogent presentation that put Google's sprawling AI keynote from May to shame.Also, as... On a basic level, none of the artificial intelligence Apple announced on Monday came as a...

The Apple Park campus in Cupertino, Calif. Photo by Anadolu via Getty Images.

‘Apple Intelligence’ is About to Test Regular People's Appetite; Meta Gets Grilled on Safety in Paris

By Amir Efrati · Jun 10, 2024 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

Excitement this morning about Apple's planned reveal of artificial intelligence features during its WWDC event for app developers is more than warranted. While it might not be as mind-blowing as the Kling AI video teasers from China’s Kuaishou last week, Apple’s expected improvements to Siri; new tools to let people automatically generate... Excitement this morning about Apple's planned reveal of artificial intelligence features during...

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Is Plagiarism a Stain on Open-Source AI?

By Kalley Huang · Jun 6, 2024 7:15am PDT · 1 comment

The open-source artificial intelligence community has been buzzing over allegations that three U.S.-based developers—including two Stanford University undergraduates—copied parts of a multimodal large-language model developed by a Chinese lab founded by Tsinghua University and Beijing-based AI startup ModelBest.This incident might seem trivial... The open-source artificial intelligence community has been buzzing over allegations that three...

Photo by Moor Studio via Shutterstock

The, Um, Psychology of, Like, AI-Generated Voices; Effective Altruists Strike Back at OpenAI

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jun 5, 2024 7:00am PDT

Photo by Moor Studio via Shutterstock

The, Um, Psychology of, Like, AI-Generated Voices; Effective Altruists Strike Back at OpenAI

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jun 5, 2024 7:00am PDT

OpenAI’s forthcoming artificial intelligence-powered voice assistant, which allows users to speak with ChatGPT on their phone, has generated tremendous buzz in the industry, and not just because of ScarJo. That’s because developing AI models that can understand human voices and generate realistic AI voices is a lot harder than you might think.... OpenAI’s forthcoming artificial intelligence-powered voice assistant, which allows users to speak...