💰️ Amazon's big bet
PLUS: Is open source king?
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Happy Thursday, fellow humans 👋
Amazon is doubling down on its Anthropic investment, Meta is making a strong case for open source AI models, and Airtable AI is now available to users for the price of a Starbucks venti latte…
Let’s dive into it!
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🧵 In today's edition:
💰️ Amazon's big bet
👑 Is open source king?
🔨 Airtable AI
🤑 AI Fundraising News
🗞️ AI Quick-Bytes
🐦 Tweet Post of the Day
💰️ Amazon's big bet
After investing $1.25B in Anthropic last September, Amazon is going all-in on its bet, dropping another $2.75B into the creator of Claude.
This brings Amazon’s total investment to $4B, marking its largest external investment to date.
Why such a huge bet?
Amazon doesn't want to be left behind in the GenAI race that’s heating up between tech giants like Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI.
Anthropic's models are already outperforming rivals like GPT-4 in certain benchmarks.
The deal also greatly benefits Amazon by giving them a minority stake in Anthropic, as well as establishing it as the startup's primary cloud provider and chip supplier.
However, it has also raised antitrust concerns, with the FTC investigating whether this investment unfairly redirects cash flow back to Amazon’s cloud businesses.
Amazon insists there's no foul play.
Either way, with $2.75B on the table, Amazon is making one of corporate venture capital's biggest bets that Claude and Anthropic will lead the GenAI industry.
Read more: CNBC
👑 Is open source king?
Source: BizJournal
Meta's policy chief Nick Clegg is sounding the alarm over placing limits on sharing AI technology publicly.
His warning? Taking such a "restrictive approach" could dim American leadership in the AI industry.
In comments to the Commerce Department’s NTIA on Wednesday, Meta argued that keeping AI models and code locked up may lead to technologies developed in other nations "becoming the global norm" instead of American innovations.
"It's not as if that vacuum is not going to be filled by others," Clegg cautioned. "Open sourcing is actually the way you export US values and technology."
While some firms like OpenAI favor keeping AI systems proprietary, Meta has been a vocal advocate for open-sourcing AI - a position shared by Microsoft.
Whether regulators agree with this remains to be seen. But one thing's for sure - Meta is betting that sharing some AI code is key for keeping U.S. influence from fading away.
In other words, open source is king 👑
Read more: Yahoo Finance
🔨 Airtable AI
The AI productivity wave is officially here.
Airtable, the popular workflow management platform, is rolling out new GenAI capabilities to all its paying users with Airtable AI.
Here’s the TL;DR:
Its features focus on summarizing, categorizing, and translating the information teams have organized across Airtable's cards and workspaces.
The idea is to let Airtable's AI analyze and synthesize scattered data into digestible insights and content.
Customers can generate AI-powered summaries, automate tagging and routing of key details, and even create emails or social posts - all within their existing Airtable workspace.
But as with all good things, Airtable AI comes at a cost - $6 per user per month after a 500-credit free trial.
What do you think? Are these features worth a cup of Starbucks every month?
Read more: The Verge
🤑 AI Fundraising News
Century Health raises $2M in Seed funding to tap AI to give pharma access to good patient data.
ValidMind raises $8.1M in Seed funding to streamline AI model risk management processes.
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🗞️ AI Quick-Bytes
What else is going on?
Meta says limits on sharing AI technology may dim US influence.
DoorDash poaches AI startup talent to bolster voice ordering.
Elon Musk says Grok AI will be available to premium X users “later this week.”
Microsoft’s new era of AI PCs will need a Copilot key, says Intel.
“He’s a Megalomaniac”: VCs reportedly fed up with OpenAI's Sam Altman.
Adobe’s Firefly Services makes over 20 new generative and creative APIs available to developers.
Instagram co-founders’ AI-powered news app Artifact may not be shutting down after all.
🐦 Tweet Post of the Day
Potentially one of the best demos I’ve seen in a while…
Meet Hume’s Empathic Voice Interface (EVI), the first conversational AI with emotional intelligence. twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
— Hume (@hume_ai)
3:59 PM • Mar 27, 2024
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And that does it for today's issue.
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