M&A activity in AI space shows flicker of new life
Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company’s weekly LinkedIn newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. I’m Mark Sullivan , a senior writer at Fast Company, covering emerging tech, AI, and tech policy.
This week, I’m looking at Midjourney’s new image “Zoom Out” feature and what it may mean for how web content is created in the near future. Also, I zoom in on a flurry of recent AI startup acquisitions and round up a few surveys about people’s thoughts on generative AI.
If a friend or colleague shared this newsletter with you, you can sign up to receive it every week here . And if you have comments on this issue and/or ideas for future ones, drop me a line at [email protected] , and follow me on Twitter @thesullivan .
Midjourney’s Zoom Out feature previews an AI-generated web
In a powerful example of AI’s emerging storytelling capabilities, the image generation tool that MidJourney debuted late last week is a new Zoom Out feature that extends the canvas of an image beyond its original borders based on guidance from a user’s language prompt as well as information from the original image.?
The Zoom Out function puts entirely new visual context around the original image, which can change its original meaning. The AI is not only riffing on the original image but also taking direction from the user on how to include totally new people, objects, and environments.?
This hints at the strange future for our digital lives. In a world where AI has hacked human language and imagery, we may not need to rely much longer on human creativity, curation, and labor for our digital entertainment, especially when it comes to more frivolous stuff like games, sitcoms, and even pornography . In the “Zoom Out” example, the AI is generating still imagery, but in the near future the content could be full-motion video, 3D immersive video, spatial audio, metaverse experiences, and beyond.??
Signs of this brave new world are already showing up in the gaming world. The gaming engine and tools maker Unity saw its stock rise by 15% Tuesday on the announcement that it will launch a generative AI tools marketplace from which game developers can select third-party gen AI tools that can auto-generate dialog (such as from Replika Studios), graphics (Atlas Design), and textures (Polyhive) for games and other experiences. “I think AI will change gaming in a couple of pretty profound ways,” Unity CEO John Riccitiello told the Associated Press Monday. “One of them is it’s going to make making games faster, cheaper, and better published—it’s already happening.”
Databricks’ MosaicML buy could signal end of AI M&A slowdown
Despite all the recent hype around generative AI, the pace of acquisitions in the space has been slow, owing more to rising interest rates than anything else. That’s why Monday’s news of the data-storage platform Databricks’ acquisition of the AI company MosaicML is so noteworthy: The $1.3 billion deal could signal renewed M&A activity, says Pitchbook analyst Brendan Burke.?
"While mega-exits slowed during the market downturn, we recently saw the start of a trend of generative AI acquisitions,” Burke writes. The trend started with Databricks' early-May acquisition of the AI governance platform Okera , Burke contends, followed by the data-storage and analytics company Snowflake's late May acquisition of the AI search engine, Neeva . The MosaicML deal is the largest AI startup acquisition since Qualtrics ' $1.3 billion purchase of Clarabridge in 2021, according to Pitchbook data.
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With its acquisition of MosaicML, which develops large language models (LLMs), Databricks will be able to give its customers a safe and secure way to use their own data to train AI models. For customers, the combination creates “a simple, fast way to retain control, security, and ownership over their valuable data without high costs,” Databricks says in a press release.?
Two other AI acquisitions were announced Monday too: The news and information provider Thomson Reuters said it’ll pay $650 million for the California-based startup Casetext, which offers an artificial intelligence-powered assistant for law professionals. And the fintech startup Ramp said it will buy Cohere.io , an AI-powered customer support startup, for an undisclosed sum.
Surveys suggest much of the public doesn’t know about AI—but businesses do
The Verge surveyed 2,000 Americans and found that 43% still aren’t aware of generative AI tools. Gen Z and millenials are hip to it, however, and are using the tech to generate text, create images, edit their writing, and brainstorm ideas.?
Another recent survey , this one by Bank of America Research, found that, in a study of 1,100 web-savvy U.S. adults, 59% use ChatGPT and 51% use Bing. Almost half (45%) would use Google Search more if it had more LLM capabilities, while 19% may use Google less due to new competition. And 80% would use LLMs the same or more if ads were integrated.
A Filtered survey found that among 500 tech-recruiting leaders, 96% want technical candidates to have generative AI skills. But 67% of recruiters objected to job candidates using generative AI tools on hiring assessments, such as coding tests.?
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Absolutely! The rate of acquisitions picking up is a clear sign of the growing significance of AI technologies in the business landscape. At Good AI Vibes, we explore AI applications in various industries and business functions through our bi-weekly newsletter. It's a valuable resource for understanding how AI is transforming businesses. Join us in this journey of exploration and stay updated by subscribing here: https://goodaivibes.substack.com/. Let's keep the conversation going and continue learning together! ??
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1 年Thanks for posting.