The AI industry is booming, with big investments and advances being made at a rapid rate. A big winner in this rush is the cloud hosting providers like Amazon, Microsoft and Google, who have seen big boosts in processor loads due to the increase in AI-based processes and applications. Highly visible AI milestones have also been met with investor and Wall St. approval, like Meta’s new focus on AI and cost-cutting layoffs.
At TED last week, Imran Chaudhri of Human (a company) presented a live demonstration of an AI assistant that is able to understand, talk, and project onto a surface like a wrist or table. This sci-fi like product is being shared online, even though it has yet to go into mass production. Similarly, the 2016 commercial featuring Siri ‘hanging out’ with Martin Scorcese still remains very much in the realm of science fiction.
Replit, an AI-focused software development company, recently closed a $97.4 million funding round led by a group of venture capitalists, including Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, and Coatue. The upsurge in popularity with the Replit user-base has resulted in 22.5 million developers, and they have recently signed a partnership with Google’s Cloud Service. Hugging Face, which closed its own $100 million Series C, has created its own version of the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT.
Protocol Labs has launch its ethically-based AI platform, Waterlily, which pays royalties directly to artists and charities every time a user pays to generate AI images using the platform. Additionally, PricewaterhouseCoopers has announced its intention to invest $1 billion in generative artificial intelligence technology over the next three years.
Coca-Cola is another corporation that is taking advantage of AI advancements, partnering with OpenAI and Bain & Company to utilize text and image generators, like ChatGPT and DALL-E, for difficult tasks such as marketing operations, business processes and material creation.
Finally,AI-focused startup Runway has launched an app, Gen-1, which allows users to create generative AI videos from recordings in minutes. And, TikTok is reportedly testing feature which generates AI avatars for users. Unfortunately for Snapchat, its recent global release of the feature My AI, powered by OpenAI’s GPT technology has not been well-received. The chatbot has caused a negative reaction amongst users which has led to a spike in one-star reviews and calls for its removal.
Forbes summarizes these stories through the lens of a former tech executive covering AI, XR and the Metaverse. AI and the related sectors have been driving the biggest investment opportunities and have been transforming the world significantly. All these points to a bright future ahead.
