This Week In XR: AI Startups Cohere, Mistral, Synthesia Raise $463 Million, Medivis Enhances X-Ray Vision for Hololens

This week, the tech world is buzzing with news about Apple’s newly unveiled Vision Pro XR headset. While reviews have been positive, some critics are questioning whether people will want to pay over $5,000 for the device. Despite this focus on XR technology, the week has also seen record-breaking investments in AI start-ups, including a $113 million seed round in a four-week-old French AI company and a $90 million investment in UK-based startup Synthesia. Other developments in the world of AI include Nvidia’s investment in generative AI start-up Cohere and Medivis’s $20 million Series A funding round to bring x-ray vision to the Hololens. Additionally, Dutch firm Versed has raised $1.7 million to create an AI-powered platform that helps users write texts for role-playing games. Meanwhile, Paul McCartney has used gen AI to restore vocals on a previously unfinished Beatles song while Meta has released a free open-source music gen trained on 20,000 hours of music. Finally, KAGAMI, a mixed reality performance that uses Magic Leap 2 headsets, has began its limited run at The Shed’s Griffin Theatre in NYC.