At the end of 2022, like many, I made some predictions about what 2023 would bring to the technology investing ecosystem.
AI and data continue to dominate the funding landscape.
U.S. VC deals fall from $275 billion in 2022 to $200 billion in 2023, and sustain at about $200-$220 billion next year.
Valuations will remain relatively steady, except for AI businesses, which will command a premium of about 10-15% to the market.
While VC deals fell dramatically between 2022 and 2023, 2024 won’t see as sharp of a decline.
As search engine incumbents — namely Google — amp up their platforms with gen AI tech, startups are looking to reinvent AI-powered search from the ground up.
Srinivas, Perplexity’s CEO, previously worked at OpenAI, where he researched language and gen AI models along the lines of Stable Diffusion and DALL-E 3.
This reporter is skeptical about the longevity of gen AI search tools for a number of reasons, not least of which AI models are costly to run.
Concerns around misuse and misinformation inevitably crop up around gen AI search tools like Perplexity, as well — as they well should.
Some plaintiffs, like The New York Times, have argued gen AI search experiences siphon off publishers’ content, readers and ad revenue through anticompetitive means.
Microsoft would like 2024 to be the “year of the AI PC” and to put a point on that, the company today announced a new key for Copilot — that is, a physical key that will soon make its way to your keyboard and join the Windows key, together with its friends the Control key, Alt and that Insert key you’ve never purposely used.
Based on the image Microsoft sent over, it looks like the new Copilot key will replace the right Control key on the standard PC keyboard, where it will slot in between the Alt key and the left arrow key.
“The introduction of the Copilot key marks the first significant change to the Windows PC keyboard in nearly three decades,” Microsoft’s Yusuf Mehdi, Executive Vice President & Consumer Chief Marketing Officer, writes in today’s announcement.
The Copilot key joins the Windows key as a core part of the PC keyboard and when pressed, the new key will invoke the Copilot in Windows experience to make it seamless to engage Copilot in your day to day.”In regions where Copilot is not available, the Copilot key will launch Windows Search.
The first keyboards with the new key will launch at this year’s CES in Las Vegas and will likely start shipping in late February.
Called Articul8 AI (an awkward abbreviation of “Articulate AI”), the new entity builds off a proof-of-concept from an Intel collaboration with Boston Consulting Group (BSG) early last May.
Reuters reports that Intel, using its hardware and a combination of open source and internally-sourced software, created a gen AI system that can read text and images — running inside BCG’s datacenters to address BSG’s security requirements.
“Articul8’s gen AI software product was built from the ground up to address the needs of enterprises and is optimized for speed of deployment, scalability, security and sustainability — including costs,” the spokesperson told TechCrunch via email.
“The Articul8 platform delivers AI capabilities that keep customer data, training and inference within the enterprise security perimeter.
“Intel and Articul8 will remain strategically aligned and Intel plans to leverage Articul8’s enterprise gen AI software for internal use cases as well as offer it to end customers as part of a joint go-to-market partnership,” the spokesperson said.
For the longest time, Mozilla was synonymous with the Firefox browser, but for the last few years, Mozilla has started to look beyond Firefox, especially as its browser’s importance continues to wane.
Late last month, I sat down with Mozilla’s president and executive director, Mark Surman, to discuss what’s next for Mozilla — and what that means for the fans and Firefox.
“Mozilla AI, which had a broad mandate around finding open source, trustworthy AI opportunities and build a business around them.
Meanwhile, the open source and AI communities are still figuring out what exactly open source AI is going to look like.
“The question that we’re asking ourselves now is: What’s the pop-up blocker for the AI era?
This edition of WiR spotlights Brian’s review of the new Amazon Echo Frames, MrBeast’s bizarre TV-like game show, the Apple Watch U.S. ban and the expected release date of the Apple Vision Pro.
Most readNew Echo Frames: Brian test drove Amazon’s new and improved Echo Frames, which feature upgraded sound and a 14-hour battery.
Apple Watch banned — then not: A recent U.S. ban on Apple Watch imports — centering on a pair of pulse oximetry sensor trademarks held by health tech company Masimo — nearly remained in place after the Biden administration declined to veto an earlier ruling by the International Trade Commission.
But then, an appeals court instituted a pause, allowing Apple to resume sales of the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 — at least temporarily.
Hyperloop One crashes and burns: One of the longest-running hyperloop startups is reportedly shutting its doors.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that businesses of all sizes and across all sectors can benefit from generative AI.
McKinsey estimates generative AI will add $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion annually across numerous industries.
That’s just one reason why over 80% of enterprises will be working with generative AI models, APIs, or applications by 2026.
However, simply adopting generative AI doesn’t guarantee success.
However, only 17% of businesses are addressing generative AI risks, which leaves them vulnerable.
Earlier this year, GitHub rolled out Copilot Chat, a ChatGPT-like programming-centric chatbot, for organizations subscribed to Copilot for Business.
Copilot Chat more recently came to individual Copilot customers — those paying $10 per month — in beta.
“And code complete was just the beginning.”Little else about Copilot Chat has changed since the beta.
Developers can prompt Copilot Chat in natural language to get real-time guidance, for example asking Copilot Chat to explain concepts, detect vulnerabilities or write unit tests.
Like all generative AI models, the model underpinning Copilot Chat, GPT-4, was trained on publicly available data — some of which is copyrighted or under a restrictive license.
Defense tech startup Shield AI has expanded its latest funding round with another $300 million in equity and debt, bringing its total Series F to $500 million, TechCrunch has exclusively learned.
This total amount reflects $200 million in equity closed in November, $100 million in new equity raised at the Series F price, and $200 million in debt.
Shield AI is building an “AI pilot” to turn aircraft into autonomous systems.
“AI pilots are becoming a strategic conventional deterrent in class with our aircraft carriers andguided missile submarines,” he said in a statement.
“Adopt AI pilots too slow, and we will fail.
Canva has crafted a wildly successful business model on the idea that graphic design should be accessible to everyone.
Canva is in 190 countries and over 100 languages, and has signed on more than 170 million active users.
“We’ve concentrated a huge amount on having really international, localized, authentic content,” Adams said.
All of that authentic local experience has been crucial to our international growth.
And international growth has been the story of Canva.”Canva’s top market is the U.S., and Adams said that’s closely followed by Brazil and India.
