Meta and Spotify are once again teaming up — this time, on the matter of open source (or to be precise, open-weight) AI which the companies claim are being hampered by regulations. In joint statements published to both companies’ respective websites on Friday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Spotify CEO Daniel Ek complain that EU […]
Meta and Spotify CEOs criticize AI regulation in the EU Read More »
This week on Equity are some deals that are unusual for a few reasons — some good, some… well, we’ll find out. First up is the $80 million round for Story, which is trying to apply that ol’ web3 magic to AI and talent management. As one investor puts it, “What Bitcoin did for money
At least 200 workers at DeepMind, Google’s AI R&D division, are displeased with Google’s reported defense contracts — and according to Time, they circulated a letter internally back in May to say as much. The letter, dated May 16, says the undersigned are concerned by “Google’s contracts with military organizations,” citing articles about the tech
DeepMind workers sign letter in protest of Google’s defense contracts Read More »
Soon, parents in range of Waymo robotaxis might not have to worry about picking up their kids from after-school activities — or anytime, really. The San Francisco Standard reports that Waymo, the Alphabet subsidiary, is considering a subscription program that would let teens hail one of its cars solo and send pickup and drop-off alerts
Waymo wants to chauffeur your kids Read More »
When you really probe venture capitalists about investing in AI startups, they’ll tell you that businesses are experimenting wildly but are very slow to add AI solutions into their ongoing business processes. But there are some exceptions. And one of them appears to be an area known as AI sales development representatives, or AI SDRs.
AI sales rep startups are booming. So why are VCs wary? Read More »
Earlier this year, reports surfaced that Alphabet had closed the book on its ag-tech robotics spinout, Mineral. The news arrived amid larger money crunches at Google’s parent. Citing a crowded market and profit concerns, Mineral ceased operation and pivoted to technology licensing. This month, Mineral CEO Elliott Grant reprinted the leaked memo, while confirming that
Former Alphabet X spinout Mineral sells technology to John Deere Read More »
Over the course of Alphabet X’s existence, the self-proclaimed “moonshot factory” has been notable for the variety in both its technological solutions and the problems it’s attempting to solve. The combination research facility/accelerator has produced balloons for rural internet and energy-producing kites. Tidal, which quietly spun out of the department in mid-July, has its own
Alphabet X’s latest spinout brings computer vision and AI to salmon farms Read More »
For some businesses, there is a clear path to growth that doesn’t involve acquiring other companies or expanding organically: franchising. The U.S. has more than 800,000 franchise businesses, according to Statista, and that number is predicted to keep growing year over year. But franchising a business — licensing a business model and brand to an
Harmonyze wants to build AI agents to help franchisors make sense of unstructured data Read More »
Early this year, AI-powered fake audio of President Biden reached voters in New Hampshire. The FCC struck back swiftly, identifying the perpetrator as the Texas-based Life Corporation, which has been behind similar scams over the years, and whacked them and an associated individual with a $6 million fine. But the scammers also enlisted the help
Telecom that enabled Biden deepfake scam will pay FCC $1M Read More »
ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth used by more than 92% of Fortune 500 companies. That growth has propelled OpenAI itself into
Everything you need to know about the AI chatbot Read More »
