The AI industry is rapidly growing, and recent developments between Google and companies like OpenAI have made the competition even fiercer. A team of former OpenAI executives have started their own AI venture, Anthropic, which recently raised a whopping $450 million funding round from Google, Zoom, Salesforce, and venture firm Spark Capital. The new influx of money is the biggest for an AI start-up since Microsoft injected $10 billion into OpenAI earlier this year.
Anthropic was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI research execs and is led by Dario Amodei, who was OpenAI’s vice president of research. The company created its own chatbot, Claude, in March, which has since received a warm reception.
Anthropic’s Claude is different from OpenAI’s ChatGPT in that its usage is not as open to the public as the former’s. Prospective users must request permission, provide a purpose, and give their identity to gain access. Other websites like Quora’s Poe.com offer access, but after a promotional period, users must pay for service.
Google has emerged as a chief rival to Microsoft in the AI space, and its lead investment in Anthropic’s funding round is indicative of the tech giant’s attempts to stake its claim in the industry. Other companies such as Meta Platforms and Amazon are also developing their own language models to compete.
As AI’s popularity takes off, Microsoft and OpenAI should prepare for competition in the generative AI space, as many tech firms are eager to get in on the potential growth. Microsoft’s foray into AI has been largely successful so far, with its partnership with OpenAI and the Bing search engine leveraging ChatGPT. Obviously, the company has a vested interest in continuing its AI investments, and investors should be taking ethical wins of the rapidly changing landscape in mind.
