Big Tech is now a founder factory for AI startups; Nvidia's CEO is worried; AI is changing warfare; Anthropic releases Claude 3.5 Sonnet; Europe tries to stay relevant in the AI race
Ilya Sutskever starts a new company focused on safer AI; global audiences weary of AI-generated news; Perplexity feels the burn; Google DeepMind's evolution from lab to product factory
A new report published this week by venture capital firm Accel and data provider Dealroom looked at over 200 European and Israeli-founded generative AI companies and more than 500 founders to produce some interesting trends and factors driving innovation in the region.
The study paints a picture of a healthy startup landscape fueled by world-class universities. More than a third (38%) of the companies have at least one founder who holds or has held a position at an academic institution. UK universities, in particular, dominate the educational backgrounds of AI founders, with the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, and University College London topping the list.
Geographically, there are also few surprises: London leads the pack as the top city for generative AI company creation, hosting 27% of the startups examined. The UK's long history in AI research and partnerships between universities and tech companies have created a rich ecosystem. Interestingly, while the UK dominates in company formation, French-founded AI startups have attracted the most funding, raising a total of $2.29 billion to date. France's strong talent pool in mathematics and computer science has attracted major AI research hubs from companies like Meta and Google. Germany's Aleph Alpha recently raised one of Europe's largest AI funding rounds, while Israel's Tel Aviv ranks second for AI company creation.
But what the report confirms with data is something we’ve all seen anecdotally over the last 12 months: AI researchers are leaving large tech companies to start new companies. A quarter of the analyzed startups have at least one founder with experience at tech giants like Amazon, Apple, Meta, Google DeepMind, or Microsoft. This percentage rises to 60% when looking at the top 10 most well-funded AI companies.
This trend mirrors a similar migration that took place 2010-2015 when computer science PhDs and even professors ventured out of the academic world to work in the tech industry. Most joined the AI labs of large technology companies but some also founded startups—though most of these companies eventually ended up getting acquired by Big Tech after a few rounds of fundraising.
However, while it’s encouraging to see that Big Tech is now becoming a founder factory, it’s also important to remember the macro reality we live in. Unlike the mid 2010s, regulators have gotten a lot tougher on M&As which means that, for most of these founders, there won’t be a soft landing back into the arms of Big Tech when their startups fail. In other words, many will be left with two options: to go big or to go bust. Meanwhile, all Big Tech can do is wait around and pick up the scraps as the carnage unfolds.
And now, here are this week’s news:
❤️Computer loves
Our top news picks for the week - your essential reading from the world of AI
The Information: Nvidia’s Jensen Huang Is on Top of the World. So Why Is He Worried?
CNBC: The best-funded generative AI startups in Europe have something in common: Big Tech experience
New York Times: Can A.I. Answer the Needs of Smaller Businesses? Some Push to Find Out.
The Economist: How AI is changing warfare
Bloomberg: Ilya Sutskever Has a New Plan for Safe Superintelligence
MIT Technology Review: Why does AI hallucinate?
Reuters: Global audiences suspicious of AI-powered newsrooms, report finds
The Atlantic: A Generation of AI Guinea Pigs
Fortune: Anthropic’s rivalry with OpenAI heats up with its claim new Claude AI surpasses GPT-4o
Fast Company: These companies want to use AI to make call center jobs less horrible
The Guardian: Computer says yes: how AI is changing our romantic lives
VentureBeat: AI is the sixth great revolution in filmmaking (and maybe the most important)
Bloomberg: Google DeepMind Shifts From Research Lab to AI Product Factory
⚙️Computer does
AI in the wild: how artificial intelligence is used across industry, from the internet, social media, and retail to transportation, healthcare, banking, and more
MIT Technology Review: How generative AI could reinvent what it means to play
New York Times: How A.I. Is Revolutionizing Drug Development
The Guardian: AI-enhanced blood test may detect Parkinson’s years before onset
TechCrunch: SewerAI uses AI to spot defects in sewer pipes
Reuters: Bayer looks to AI to combat herbicide resistance faster
Reuters: AI can help shipping industry cut down emissions, report says
🧑🎓Computer learns
Interesting trends and developments from various AI fields, companies and people
Reuters: PayPal hires Walmart exec as chief technology officer in AI push
VentureBeat; New medical LLM, PathChat 2, can talk to pathologists about tumors, offer diagnoses
VentureBeat: GrayMatter scores $45M for robots that speed-up manufacturing with ‘physics-informed AI’
TechCrunch: Pocket FM partners with ElevenLabs to convert scripts into audio content quickly
New York Times: At Target, Store Workers Become A.I. Conduits
Washington Post: Can AI police itself? Experts say chatbots can detect each other’s gaffes.
TechCrunch: Amazon extends generative AI-powered product listings to Europe
The Verge: Embracer Group believes AI will ‘empower’ game developers
TechCrunch: Materia looks to make accountants more efficient with AI
Bloomberg: Canada Needs AI Adoption to Narrow Productivity Gap, RBC Says
Reuters: SoftBank's Son: will ramp up US power business for generative AI
The Economist: How physics can improve image-generating AI
Business Insider: This new technology for nuclear power could help fuel the AI revolution
Business Insider: Awkward Chinese youths are paying AI love coaches $7 weekly to learn how to talk on dates
MIT Technology Review: I tested out a buzzy new text-to-video AI model from China
Semafor: AI models can vastly increase job candidate pools. It might also improve diversity.
VentureBeat: Microsoft drops Florence-2, a unified model to handle a variety of vision tasks
VentureBeat: ElevenLabs unveils open-source creator tool for adding sound effects to videos
The Telegraph: The first film written by AI has arrived – and Hollywood is terrified
Reuters: Dell, Super Micro providing server racks for xAI's supercomputer
Business Insider: Businesses are rushing to use generative AI. Now comes the messy part.
Reuters: Law schools boost their AI offerings as industry booms
The Information: Americans Are Impressed with China’s AI
The Verge: AIs are coming for social networks
Fast Company: The world’s first AI beauty pageant points to the future of social media influencers
Axios: Generative AI could power the next wave of self-driving cars
TechCrunch: Snap previews its real-time image model that can generate AR experiences
VentureBeat: Runway’s co-founder and CTO says Gen-3 Alpha coming in ‘days’ starting with paid subscribers
VentureBeat: Apple embraces open-source AI with 20 Core ML models on Hugging Face platform
Reuters: HPE CEO unveils 'simple' AI hardware aimed to help businesses
Fortune: At Cannes, the ad industry contemplates its AI future with a mix of hope and fear
Business Insider: BlackRock says inflation could be an unwelcome side effect of the AI-driven productivity boom
MIT Technology Review: Meta has created a way to watermark AI-generated speech
MIT Technology Review: Why artists are becoming less scared of AI
MIT Technology Review: What happened when 20 comedians got AI to write their routines
TechCrunch: DeepMind’s new AI generates soundtracks and dialogue for videos
Wired: AI Is Coming for Big Tech Jobs—but Not in the Way You Think
Axios: Big tech companies trip in race to take AI mainstream
Sifted: Crème de la LLM: How language models are enhancing machine learning applications
TechCrunch: Runway’s new video-generating AI, Gen-3, offers improved controls
WSJ: OpenAI Expands Healthcare Push With Color Health’s Cancer Copilot
VentureBeat: Applied Intuition debuts AI software helping autonomous systems navigate across all terrains
Business Insider: TikTok is getting into the murky business of AI-generated avatars and influencer ads
Axios: Humans are warming to the idea of AI money management
Fortune: Microsoft’s Japan head thinks the aging country needs AI: ‘We don’t have enough people’
VentureBeat: Kong launches AI Gateway to help enterprises govern and scale generative AI
The Guardian: Reading, writing and … disinformation: should schoolchildren be taught media literacy like maths?
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