Plus: Pope Francis will discuss AI's risks during G7 Summit
| For June 12, 2024 |  |
| Here’s a look at today's AI briefing: - OpenAI tops $3.4B in annualized revenue, doubling from October.
- Apple passes Microsoft as most valuable company.
- OpenAI taps Oracle for growing compute demands.
- Pope Francis will discuss AI's risks during G7 Summit.
- Survey: 81% of U.S. business owners to maintain or boost AI investments this year.
- Fresh funding.
Beth
p/beth-duckett | |
| 1 | | OpenAI surpassed the milestone of $3.4B in annualized revenue, The Information reports. OpenAI's annual run rate, calculated by multiplying the previous month's revenue by 12, reached $2B in December. More: - Most of OpenAI's revenue, about $3.2B annually, stems from ChatGPT subscriptions and fees from its developer platform, according to The Information.
- The other $200M is from Microsoft's sales of OpenAI models on Azure, CEO Sam Altman reportedly told employees.
- As of October last year, OpenAI's annualized revenue was $1.3B.
Zoom out: - As of November, more than 92% of Fortune 500 companies used OpenAI's platform, an increase from 80% in 2022.
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| 2 | | Apple briefly became the world's most valuable company on Wednesday, reclaiming the title from Microsoft. As of today, the two companies were competing for the title, with both hovering around a market cap of $3.27 to $3.28 trillion. More: - Apple briefly reached a $3.3 trillion market cap today, two days after it announced its major push into generative AI across apps and devices.
- Apple stock rose 7% on Tuesday, reaching a record high. Shares continued to climb on Wednesday, pushing its market cap briefly above Microsoft's $3.2 trillion.
- Apple also became the first trillion-dollar brand today, topping Kantar BrandZ's 2024 Global Brands Report for the third year alongside Google, Microsoft, and Amazon.
- "This year, brands investing in AI are seeing remarkable gains by reaping the benefits of enhanced customer experience," the report noted.
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| 3 | | Oracle announced a cloud infrastructure deal with Microsoft and OpenAI. OpenAI will tap Oracle’s infrastructure for inference and other use cases on Microsoft's Azure AI platform. More: - OpenAI is expanding beyond Microsoft to Oracle to meet its growing compute demands.
- The deal will allow "OpenAI to continue to scale," according to CEO Sam Altman.
- OpenAI later clarified that its "strategic cloud relationship with Microsoft is unchanged."
- Pre-training of its models still happens on supercomputers it developed with Microsoft, it said.
- Elon Musk's xAI also rents cloud servers from Oracle.
Zoom out: - Oracle said it also signed a partnership with Google Cloud.
- Following the announcement, Oracle's shares hit a record high.
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| 4 | | Pope Francis will be the first pope to attend this week's Group of Seven (G7) summit, where he will reportedly advocate for AI regulations. Francis "is concerned about the social aspects and implications of AI,” according to Father Paolo Benanti told CNN. More: - The pope's main focus is "which elements of AI are causing inequality for humanity, and topics such as the distribution of fake news in the public square," Benanti added.
- In January, Francis called for more regulations of AI "to forestall harmful, discriminatory, and socially unjust effects."
- He specifically raised the problem of deepfakes, saying AI technology "becomes perverse when it distorts our relationship with others and with reality."
- A deepfake photo depicting Francis in a white puffer jacket went viral on social media last year.
Zoom out: - The summit brings together leaders from the G7 nations of the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Canada.
- At last year's summit, leaders discussed the need for "guardrails" to regulate AI.
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| 5 | | According to a Gallagher survey, over 80% of U.S. business owners plan to maintain or increase their AI investments in 2024. The poll of 1,000 business owners also revealed that small businesses with 1-50 employees are less interested in AI compared to larger companies. 
What the numbers show: Half of the businesses investing in AI plan to boost their IT capabilities, while others are looking to improve marketing (42%) and sales (35%). Still: Despite AI's benefits, many businesses are wary of its drawbacks, including risks to sensitive information (37%), regulatory issues (35%), and job obsolescence (35%) | | | |
| 6 | | Fresh funding: - European AI startup Mistral AI has reportedly closed its Series B funding round at €600M ($640M). Existing investor General Catalyst led the round, which consisted of €468M ($500M) in equity and €132M ($140M) in debt.
- Canadian AI startup Cohere doubled its valuation to $5B while raising a $450M funding round from Nvidia, Salesforce Ventures, Cisco, and PSP Investments.
- AI-powered video generation platform maker Pika secured $80M through a Series B funding round led by Spark Capital. The round doubled the company’s valuation to $470M. Other investors participating in the round include Greycroft, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and actor Jared Leto.
- South Korean AI startup Twelve Labs raised a $50M Series A funding round co-led by Nvidia’s venture capital arm NVentures and New Enterprise Associates. Other investors participating in the funding round include Index Ventures, Radical Ventures, and WndrCo.
This information was first published in our Inside Venture Capital newsletter. Subscribe here. | | | |
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 | AI and technology writer | | Beth is a contributing editor and writer of Inside's AI and Tech newsletters. She has written for publications including USA Today, the Arizona Business Gazette, and The Arizona Republic, where she received recognition with a Pulitzer Prize nomination and a First Amendment Award for collaborative reporting on state pension cost increases. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@yahoo.com. | | This newsletter was edited by Beth Duckett | |
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