The billions going into AI is reminiscent of crypto and means a “bunch of hype and maybe some grifting,” Google $GOOGL’s AI chief said — but Google reportedly might start charging for AI-powered search. And Google just hired a former OpenAI executive to boost the company’s AI efforts.
Check out those and more highlights from the week in AI news.
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Google $GOOGL parent Alphabet might start charging for an AI-powered upgrade to its search engine, which would be the first time a core product from the company gets put behind a paywall.
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OpenAI’s former head of developer relations, who left the Sam Altman-helmed startup in March, announced this week that he has joined Google $GOOGL.
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Big Tech is swallowing up AI companies, with Apple $AAPL quietly leading the pack. Meta $META, Microsoft $MSFT, Google $GOOGL parent Alphabet, Amazon $AMZN, Nvidia $NVDA, and Apple have closed acquisitions of 88 AI and machine learning companies over the past two decades, according to PitchBook data reviewed by Quartz.
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Microsoft $MSFT’s dive into AI is spreading to its gaming division in the form of an animated character chatbot.
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Yahoo, the former king of the internet, said Tuesday that it’s acquiring an AI news aggregation company.
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Nvidia $NVDA and its high-flying stock have exploded on the market over the past year, as the AI craze — and the expensive chips Nvidia sells to power AI models — brought a special sparkle to investors’ eyes.
The $2 trillion dollar company had humble beginnings. Its now-billionaire founder and CEO Jensen Huang worked as a dishwasher to make money as a teenager, and the company almost went bankrupt in its first two years.
Now Nvidia stock is up a whopping 87% so far in 2024, 223% over the last 12 months, 1,793% over the last five years. Let’s take a look at how we got here.
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The billions of dollars going into AI is reminiscent of crypto hype, and it’s getting in the way of science and research, Google $GOOGL’s AI chief is warning.
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As analysts debate whether high investments and valuations in the AI space are creating a bubble akin to the dot-com bubble of the 90s, a less than six-month-old startup is seeking a valuation in the billions.
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For many, hearing the name Foxconn immediately brings to mind iPhone production. It’s true, the Taiwanese company is a major producer of Apple $AAPL’s smartphones and other products. But it also makes something companies like Nvidia $NVDA, Amazon $AMZN, and more are in high demand of: AI-related hardware. And Big Tech companies in the U.S. would like that hardware to come from Mexico and not China, thank you very much.
