The Information

Art by Mike Sullivan

TikTok Considers Quibi-Style Minidramas to Broaden Appeal

By Juro Osawa and Kaya Yurieff · Nov 16, 2024 6:00am PST · 5 comments

Everyone from Hollywood veteran Jeffrey Katzenberg to Snap and Meta Platforms has tried luring Americans with minuteslong TV-style shows on social media apps. All have failed. But that isn’t deterring TikTok from exploring the concept. The ByteDance-owned video app is considering ways of using such minidramas, which have proved to be a... Everyone from Hollywood veteran Jeffrey Katzenberg to Snap and Meta Platforms has tried luring...

Synthesia CEO Victor Riparbelli. Photo via Getty.

Recent Venture Deals Show AI Valuations May Be Cooling

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Natasha Mascarenhas · Nov 14, 2024 11:58am PST

Valuations of generative artificial intelligence startups appear to be coming down—slightly. The latest example is Synthesia, which helps companies create AI videos. It’s raising $150 million in funding at a valuation of $2.1 billion after the investment, double its valuation from 17 months ago, according to a person involved in the... Valuations of generative artificial intelligence startups appear to be coming...

Art by Clark Miller

The Enterprise Search App That Got Google and OpenAI’s Attention

By Kevin McLaughlin · Nov 14, 2024 6:00am PST · 1 comment

ChatGPT changed how people search for information online, sparking a battle among tech giants. Now Glean, a five-year-old startup led by a former Google search engineer, is attracting big rivals in a related market: search chatbots for businesses. These products, which are powered by the same technology that’s behind ChatGPT, help... ChatGPT changed how people search for information online, sparking a battle among tech giants....

Art by Clark Miller

Following OpenAI, Google Changes Tack to Overcome AI Slowdown

By Jon Victor · Nov 13, 2024 9:31am PST · 2 comments

Art by Clark Miller

Following OpenAI, Google Changes Tack to Overcome AI Slowdown

By Jon Victor · Nov 13, 2024 9:31am PST · 2 comments

Google has recently struggled to achieve performance gains in its Gemini conversational artificial intelligence at the same rate it did last year, prompting researchers to focus on other ways to eke out gains, according to an employee who has been involved in the effort. The situation appears similar to the slowdown in AI advances that rival... Google has recently struggled to achieve performance gains in its Gemini conversational...

Photo by Getty

Meta to Launch Ads on Threads in Early 2025

By Sylvia Varnham O'Regan and Kalley Huang · Nov 13, 2024 9:22am PST

Meta Platforms plans to introduce advertisements to its text app, Threads, early next year, hoping to cash in on the app’s rapid growth, according to three people with direct knowledge of the company’s plans. A team inside Instagram’s advertising division is leading the effort, which is still in the early stages, the people... Meta Platforms plans to introduce advertisements to its text app, Threads, early next year,...

An xAI facility in Memphis. Photos via Google Earth and Getty

How Elon Musk’s Supercomputer Freaked Out AI Rivals

By Anissa Gardizy · Nov 13, 2024 6:00am PST · 6 comments

On a sunny day last month, a propeller plane made multiple passes in the air over a large industrial building surrounded by grassy fields near downtown Memphis, Tenn., as its passengers snapped photographs and videos of the facility. It was a secret reconnaissance mission. Elon Musk had recently converted the building from a former manufacturing... On a sunny day last month, a propeller plane made multiple passes in the air over a large...

Adrian Aoun, founder and chief executive officer of GoForward Inc., Photo by David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Forward, Startup Behind ‘Doctor in Box’ Healthcare Modules, to Shut Down

By Sri Muppidi · Nov 12, 2024 5:58pm PST · 11 comments

Forward, a startup that raised $400 million to operate artificial intelligence-powered “doctor in a box” healthcare stations, is shutting down effective Tuesday, according to a person close to the company. All of its nearly 200 employees will lose their jobs, the person said. The San Francisco startup, started in 2017 by former... Forward, a startup that raised $400 million to operate artificial intelligence-powered...

Databricks CEO, Ali Ghodsi. Photo via Getty.

Databricks Considers Raising Cash to Resolve Employee Stock Squeeze

By Cory Weinberg · Nov 12, 2024 9:45am PST · 3 comments

Databricks CEO, Ali Ghodsi. Photo via Getty.

Databricks Considers Raising Cash to Resolve Employee Stock Squeeze

By Cory Weinberg · Nov 12, 2024 9:45am PST · 3 comments

Enterprise software firm Databricks, one of the world’s most valuable private tech companies, is considering raising several billion dollars in the coming months to allow employees to cash out stock grants that begin to expire in early 2026. Such a move would signal that the firm, whose business of data management software has gotten a... Enterprise software firm Databricks, one of the world’s most valuable private tech...

Spyglass vessels by Saronic Technologies. Photo via Saronic Technologies.

Trump’s Win Stokes Defense Tech Bulls, Despite Talk of a Bubble

By Cory Weinberg · Nov 12, 2024 6:00am PST · 5 comments

Count defense tech bulls among the investor groups buoyed by last week’s election of Donald Trump as president. Some investors and executives are hopeful enough in what the Trump administration will do that they’re downplaying talk of a financial bubble forming among defense and aerospace startups. One bellwether may be Saronic... Count defense tech bulls among the investor groups buoyed by last week’s election of Donald...

Art by Clark Miller

How TikTok Courted Conservatives Before Trump’s Win

By Juro Osawa, Erin Woo and Sri Muppidi · Nov 11, 2024 11:49am PST · 1 comment

More than a year before Donald Trump’s landslide victory in last week’s presidential election, TikTok’s top leaders insisted on a major shift in the app’s content moderation principles to make the platform more appealing for Trump and his supporters. In a series of internal meetings, U.S. public policy chief Michael... More than a year before Donald Trump’s landslide victory in last week’s presidential...

Blackstone’s Spanx and Supergoop Bets Are Stuck in Low Gear

By Ann Gehan and Cory Weinberg · Nov 11, 2024 6:00am PST

How tough is it out there for investors that made big consumer bets in recent years? Just take a look at private equity giant Blackstone. Blackstone’s $4.5 billion debut growth equity fund is sitting on steep paper losses in oat milk brand Oatly, whose shares dropped soon after its 2021 initial public offering. The fund’s bet on... How tough is it out there for investors that made big consumer bets in recent years? Just take a...

Art by Clark Miller

OpenAI Shifts Strategy as Rate of ‘GPT’ AI Improvements Slows

By Stephanie Palazzolo, Erin Woo and Amir Efrati · Nov 9, 2024 1:47pm PST · 9 comments

Art by Clark Miller

OpenAI Shifts Strategy as Rate of ‘GPT’ AI Improvements Slows

By Stephanie Palazzolo, Erin Woo and Amir Efrati · Nov 9, 2024 1:47pm PST · 9 comments

The number of people using ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence products is soaring. The rate of improvement for the basic building blocks underpinning them appears to be slowing down, though. The situation has prompted OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, to cook up new techniques for boosting those building blocks, known as large language models,... The number of people using ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence products is soaring. The...

Citi Cut Off Temu Payments After Visa Raised Concerns

By Michael Roddan and Qianer Liu · Nov 8, 2024 6:00am PST · 1 comment

In just two years, Chinese-owned Temu has come out of nowhere to become one of the best-known bargain shopping sites, known for its ultracheap and sometimes wacky gadgets and apparel. U.S. consumers are expected to spend about $18 billion on the site this year. Behind the scenes, though, Temu has encountered trouble with the bank that was... In just two years, Chinese-owned Temu has come out of nowhere to become one of the best-known...

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. Photos via Getty.

Amazon Discussing New Multibillion-Dollar Investment in Anthropic

By Anissa Gardizy · Nov 7, 2024 3:24pm PST

Amazon is discussing making a second multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI rival Anthropic, according to a person involved in the discussions. The new deal is similar to Amazon’s initial $4 billion dollar investment in the startup, which was struck last year. But this time, Amazon wants Anthropic to make a concession. The cloud giant is... Amazon is discussing making a second multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI rival Anthropic,...

Image via Getty

Two OpenAI Business Partners Each Discuss $2 Billion Valuation

By Natasha Mascarenhas and Jon Victor · Nov 6, 2024 7:04pm PST

OpenAI’s rapid growth continues to boost the prospects of suppliers and other business partners whose sales are also climbing quickly. Anysphere, which develops Cursor, an artificial intelligence coding assistant powered in part by OpenAI technology, has received investment offers from venture capitalists at a valuation of around $2.5... OpenAI’s rapid growth continues to boost the prospects of suppliers and other business...

Art by Mike Sullivan

TikTok Sees Trump Victory As App’s Best Hope

By Juro Osawa and Kaya Yurieff · Nov 5, 2024 1:40pm PST

Art by Mike Sullivan

TikTok Sees Trump Victory As App’s Best Hope

By Juro Osawa and Kaya Yurieff · Nov 5, 2024 1:40pm PST

Donald Trump used to be TikTok’s biggest threat. But now, four years after he tried to ban the app, he may be TikTok’s last hope for survival. As Americans vote in Tuesday’s election, TikTok’s top executives believe the company would be better off with a Trump presidency than a Harris administration. Trump has come out in... Donald Trump used to be TikTok’s biggest threat. But now, four years after he tried to ban...

A visitor wears a virtual reality headset Meta Quest as he takes part in an immersive experience stand in Paris last May. Photo by Getty.

Meta’s VR App Funding Retreat Forces Developers to Slash Staff

By Sylvia Varnham O'Regan and Kalley Huang · Nov 5, 2024 12:02pm PST

Meta Platforms is becoming more discriminating in its spending for games and other apps for its Quest mixed reality headsets. Over the past year, as Meta has confronted weakening sales in the mixed reality market, its staffers have been rethinking the millions of dollars it spends on app development. In recent months, the company has closed one... Meta Platforms is becoming more discriminating in its spending for games and other apps for its...

Photo by Getty

TikTok Maintains Solid First-Half Revenue Growth Despite U.S. Ban Threat

By Juro Osawa and Jing Yang · Nov 4, 2024 1:36pm PST · 1 comment

TikTok parent ByteDance increased its international revenue more than 60% to about $17 billion in the first half of 2024, according to two people with knowledge of the financial results. As TikTok accounts for most of ByteDance’s revenue outside China, the growth suggests that TikTok’s advertising and other businesses have remained... TikTok parent ByteDance increased its international revenue more than 60% to about $17 billion in...

Art via Clark Miller

Corporate Spending on OpenAI Threatens Salesforce, Other Enterprise Apps

By Aaron Holmes · Nov 4, 2024 6:00am PST · 1 comment

Artificial intelligence is supposed to transform the business world and boost the software industry that’s selling it. But as companies spend more money on chatbots and other conversational AI (see related chart), some say they plan to reduce spending on other types of software, such as expensive enterprise applications and non-AI cloud... Artificial intelligence is supposed to transform the business world and boost the software...

The Generative AI Spending of 50 Companies, From Coke to Walmart

By Aaron Holmes · Nov 4, 2024 6:00am PST · 8 comments

The Generative AI Spending of 50 Companies, From Coke to Walmart

By Aaron Holmes · Nov 4, 2024 6:00am PST · 8 comments

Companies large and small are incorporating more artificial intelligence into their workflows and products. Interviews with tech executives and new data reveal that some companies are on track to spend tens of millions of dollars annually on conversational AI powered by large language models. This list is a first-of-its-kind look at how 50... Companies large and small are incorporating more artificial intelligence into their workflows and...