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| Here are today's top stories: - Apple ramps up AI efforts.
- SAP to restructure jobs amid AI push.
- Microsoft's market cap surpasses $3T.
Beth
p/beth-duckett | |
| 1 | | Apple has been quietly acquiring AI-focused companies and talent as it works to integrate on-device AI into upcoming iPhones, the Financial Times reported. PitchBook data reveals that Apple has outpaced other tech competitors in acquiring AI startups, with a total of 21 purchases since 2017. Its most recent was AI video compression startup WaveOne in early 2023. 
Details: Apple, while less vocal about its AI efforts than Google and Microsoft, has been quietly working on "tackling the technological problem of running AI through mobile devices," according to FT. The company wants to develop on-device generative AI, focusing on optimizing and downsizing its LLM and leveraging advanced mobile hardware and faster Apple silicon chips. To achieve this, the company has been snatching up AI startups and hiring AI talent. Nearly 50% of Apple's AI job listings mention the phrase "deep learning," according to a Morgan Stanley research note. What's next: Daniel Ives from Wedbush Securities believes Apple will make a significant AI deal this year amid the intensifying AI competition. Apple plans to unveil AI-based tools at June's WWDC, previewing iOS 18 with a focus on generative AI and possibly including an LLM-powered Siri. The AI features could appear in iPhones later this year and in 2025. |     | |
| 2 | German software giant SAP is restructuring 8,000 jobs and investing $2.2B in a program focused on incorporating more AI into its business operations. The 8,000 employees will either undergo AI skills retraining or leave SAP under a voluntary buyout program. More: - SAP plans to intensify its focus on critical strategic growth areas, especially Business AI, in 2024, the company said in a news release.
- The company is changing its operations to support "organizational synergies, AI-driven efficiencies, and to prepare the company for highly scalable future revenue growth," according to the release.
- The restructuring is projected to cost €2B ($2.2B) but yield €500M ($545M) in efficiency savings in 2025.
- SAP expects to end the year with a headcount similar to what it has now. The company had 107,602 employees as of late 2023.
Zoom out: - Following the announcement, SAP's American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) soared to an all-time high on Wednesday, rising more than 7% during intraday trading.
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| 3 | | Microsoft briefly reached a historic $3T market valuation on Wednesday, driven by optimism over its AI advancements and products. Microsoft's shares peaked at a record high of $405.63, surpassing a $3T market cap for the first time. Its stock later closed at $402.56, valuing the company at $2.99T. 
What the numbers show: Microsoft's stock rose 57% in 2023 and another 7.3% this year as investors remain bullish on its AI investments. All in the past year, the company has launched its Copilot AI assistant across Microsoft 365, Windows, Edge, and Bing. Microsoft continues to be the world's second-highest-valued company after Apple, whose market cap closed at $3.01T on Wednesday. Quotable: "There is a huge push toward generative AI, and Microsoft is holding a tremendous number of the cards with its offerings," said Ted Mortonson, technology desk sector strategist at Baird. "To see a company of this size with this kind of growth is pretty amazing, and I think that so long as we continue to see this kind of growth, the stock will continue to rip." | | | |
| 4 | | Pope Francis called for more regulations of AI "to forestall harmful, discriminatory, and socially unjust effects." During Wednesday's speech in Vatican City, Francis specifically called out the problem of deepfakes, saying the technology "becomes perverse when it distorts our relationship with others and with reality." More: - Francis called AI technology "both exciting and disorienting."
- He called for global cooperation in creating an international treaty to regulate the development and use of various forms of AI.
- The Pope also warned about the rise of "images that appear perfectly plausible but false," as well as audio deepfakes that can "use a person's voice to say things which that person never said."
- A deepfake photo depicting Francis in a white puffer jacket went viral on social media last year.
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| 5 | | Google announced it will settle a $1.7B patent infringement lawsuit brought by Singular Computing LLC. Singular accused Google of copying inventor Joseph Bates' technology to improve its artificial intelligence in services like Google Search, Gmail, and Google Translate. Details of the settlement were not disclosed. More: - Singular, founded by Bates, claimed that Google illegally used its technology to develop its Tensor Processing Units (TPUs).
- Google launched the application-specific integrated circuits to power its AI for tasks like speech recognition and text generation.
- Singular, however, claimed that the second and third versions of the units, released in 2017 and 2018, infringed on its patents.
- The company was seeking $1.67B in damages for Google's purported misuse of the technology.
- While Google denied the claims, it reached a settlement on the same day closing arguments were set to start in the trial.
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| 6 | | 🍋 FRESH FUNDING 🍋 - Corporate travel firm TravelPerk raised $104M in funding to fuel its growth and invest further in AI and automation. The SaaS platform relies on AI to automate back-end tasks for business travel, such as finding the best prices for flights.
- AI voice cloning startup ElevenLabs cemented its unicorn status with a $80M Series B round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, and Daniel Gross. The firm was valued at $1.1B at the funding round. Sequoia Capital, Smash Capital, SV Angel, BroadLight Capital, and Credo Ventures participated in the round.
- Forta, a healthcare services startup that leverages AI to offer care programs, bagged $55M in Series A funding led by Insight Partners. The round saw participation from Exor Ventures, Alumni Ventures, 23&Me, Curative, Flexport, Warby Parker, Allbirds, and others.
- Cohere, a startup specializing in large language models for enterprises, is in talks to raise between $500M and $1B in fresh capital, according to FT. The funding round is expected to boost the company's valuation beyond the $2.2B it reached when it raised $270M last summer.
For the latest on AI startup funding and more in the VC community, subscribe to our Inside Venture Capital newsletter. | | | |
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- The National Science Foundation (NSF) and other agencies are launching a pilot program to offer U.S. AI researchers access to resources like AI models, computing power, and datasets.
- San Francisco's Voltron Data is acquiring real-time AI platform Claypot to improve its data analytics offerings, including fraud detection and personalization.
- Tesla is developing a compact crossover electric vehicle, codenamed "Redwood," that could start production in June 2025.
- Google, Weizmann Institute, and Tel Aviv University researchers developed Lumiere, an advanced space-time diffusion model for realistic video generation.
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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 notable publications like USA Today and the Arizona Business Gazette. During her time as a public policy reporter at The Arizona Republic, she received recognition with a Pulitzer Prize nomination and a First Amendment Award for her collaborative reporting on pension cost increases. Beth also authored a book on the solar photovoltaic industry in 2016. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@yahoo.com. | | This newsletter was edited by Aaron Crutchfield | |
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