AI Search Engine Raises at $500M

Plus Midjourney's new website

Author

Nathaniel Whittemore
October 25, 2023

The AI Breakdown First Five - Wednesday October 25, 2023

Today on the First Five:

  • 5. Midjourney Launches A Website (Finally)

  • 4. Google Announces AI Safety Fund

  • 3. Microsoft and Google Earnings Are All About AI

  • 2. OpenAI Coming Under Serious Price Pressure

  • 1. AI Research Tool Perplexity Raising at $500M Valuation

5. Midjourney Launches A Website (Finally)

Midjourney has for some time been considered the leader in the image generation space, despite it being a self-funded, 40-person team. When DALL-E-3 came out and integrated directly into ChatGPT however, many wondered what Midjourney could do. Part of the answer is a just launched Beta Website that slaps.

4. Google Announces AI Safety Fund

Industry self-regulatory efforts continue. Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic recently teamed up to create the Frontier Model Forum as an industry body working to ensure safe development of AI. Today they announced the Executive Director of that organization as well as a $10m AI Safety Fund.

3. Microsoft and Google Earnings Are All About AI

If the only barometer of the AI battle is Wall Street, then Microsoft seems to have a leg up on Google. Both companies reported strong earnings yesterday, but Microsoft surprised to the upside with their cloud business, buffered by AI. Google meanwhile had its slowest cloud growth since 2019. Microsoft was up 4% in after hours trading while Google was down 6%.

Microsoft and Alphabet results show Wall Street only cares about AI

Microsoft and Alphabet both reported mostly strong results Tuesday, but the disparate reactions from investors showed that Wall Street only cares about AI now.

www.marketwatch.com/story/microsoft-and-alphabet-results-show-wall-street-only-cares-about-ai-65202238

2. OpenAI Coming Under Serious Price Pressure

It hasn’t really been a question of whether OpenAI had the most technically advanced product offerings; but price has been a barrier and is apparently getting worse. The Information reports that several big former customers of OpenAI are moving to cheaper alternatives. The company is now racing to figure out how to reduce costs.

1. AI Research Tool Perplexity Raising at $500M Valuation

Perplexity has been one of the best examples of how much user interface and user experience matters when it comes to productizing AI. Rather than focusing on training their own unique models, Perplexity has built an AI-native search engine that is optimized for research. The company is raising around $50m at a valuation of $500m, up from $150m just 7 months ago.

BONUS: Which AI tools people are actually using and paying for

The Information’s Readers Use AI—and Pay for It

An overwhelming majority of The Information’s readers say they use artificial intelligence services such as ChatGPT in either their personal or their professional lives, and two-thirds of that group pay for at least one service. That’s according to our latest monthly survey, which also found ...

www.theinformation.com/articles/the-informations-readers-use-ai-and-pay-for-it?utm_source=www.theneurondaily.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=an-update-on-bard&rc=jrwr4u

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