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| Here's a look at today's AI briefing: - Stability AI considers selling amid investor pressure.
- Google DeepMind AI predicts 2 million new material structures.
- GM will cut spending on Cruise self-driving unit.
- Meta requires AI disclosure in political and social issue ads.
Beth
p/beth-duckett | |
| 1 | | Stability AI, the startup behind Stable Diffusion, has been exploring a possible sale amid heightened pressure from investors over finances. Bloomberg sources said the British company has started early discussions with several firms, but a sale is not imminent, and Stability could end the talks without selling. More: - According to the sources, Stability has approached AI startups Cohere and Jasper about a potential buyout.
- However, a company spokesperson told Bloomberg that, despite interest from several buyers, Stability AI is not actively seeking to sell the company.
- Instead, the company is focused on releasing models, such as Stable Video Diffusion, its new open-source image-to-video generator.
- Stability AI also introduced Stable Diffusion XL Turbo, an AI image-synthesis model that generates imagery from written prompts in near real-time.
Zoom out: - According to the sources, investor Coatue Management has also called for Stability CEO Emad Mostaque to step down.
- Earlier this year, Mostaque was accused of making exaggerated statements about his background and the company.
- Coatue noted that Mostaque's leadership has led to senior managers leaving and placed the startup in a precarious financial position.
- Stability's general counsel Adam Avrunin and chief people officer Ozden Onder recently departed, only two months after the company announced them as hires.
- A year ago, Stability AI confirmed a $101M fundraise led by Coatue, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and O'Shaughnessy Ventures LLC.
- The oversubscribed round valued the London startup at around $1B.
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| 2 | | An AI system developed at Google DeepMind has predicted the structures of over 2 million new materials. The breakthrough is expected to speed up the development of new materials in areas like energy storage, solar cells, and superconductor chips. More: - Researchers at Google DeepMind and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory developed the AI tool, called GNoME, using data from the Materials Project.
- In just 17 days, GNoME pinpointed 2.2 million potentially stable inorganic crystal structures.
- Out of those candidates, DeepMind selected the 381,000 most stable materials and added them to the ISCD, the world's largest database for completely identified inorganic crystal structures, expanding the number of known stable materials by a factor of 10.
- DeepMind collaborated with external researchers to validate the stability of the predicted materials, successfully synthesizing 736 of them.
- The research was published in two papers in the scientific journal Nature, which can be accessed here and here.
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| 3 | | General Motors will cut spending on its self-driving division, Cruise, following a recent pedestrian accident and concerns about the safety of its autonomous driving technology. After the incident, California's DMV suspended Cruise's permits, and GM issued a recall for Cruise's entire 950-robotaxi fleet. More: - Once operations resume, GM expects its plans for Cruise to be more "deliberate," GM CEO Mary Barra told shareholders during a conference call on Wednesday.
- The move will result in "substantially" reduced spending at Cruise, including plans to cut hundreds of millions of dollars next year, she said.
- Barra stressed a need to rebuild trust with regulators, shareholders, and communities where Cruise operates.
- Specifics about the new Cruise will be provided in the coming weeks, pending the outcomes of two ongoing safety reviews.
- Cruise incurred a $1.9B loss in the first nine months of the year.
Zoom out: - An Oct. 2 incident in San Francisco heightened safety concerns about Cruise's self-driving technology.
- A company car unintentionally dragged a woman 20 feet, causing serious injuries, after she was struck by a human-driven vehicle and ended up in the path of the Cruise car.
- Cruise later paused all its U.S. supervised and manual car trips and expanded a safety review. Soon after, CEO Kyle Vogt and co-founder Dan Kan resigned.
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| 4 | | Meta will require advertisers to disclose their use of AI in certain political or social issue ads. The rule applies when an ad features digitally manipulated photorealistic visuals or audio that portray a real person saying or doing something they didn't actually say or do, according to Meta's president of global affairs, Nick Clegg. More: - The new rule also applies if an ad shows a non-existent realistic person or event, manipulates real event footage, or portrays an allegedly real event that isn't authentic, Clegg wrote in a blog post.
- Meta is also barring advertisers from using its own generative AI tools for political ads on Instagram and Facebook, limiting advertisers to third-party AI software only.
- As in prior elections, Meta will block new political ads in the final week of U.S. elections due to the challenge of fact-checking in a short timeframe.
Zoom out: - Platforms are bracing for the first major elections next year since consumer AI tools have made it easier to produce convincing deepfake videos and audio.
- Besides the U.S., several other countries and regions, including India, Indonesia, Mexico, and the EU, will have elections in 2024.
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| 5 | | JPMorgan Chase & Co. reports that its AI tools are now generating revenue for the bank. The financial services giant initially set a target of $1B in AI-generated "business value" for 2023, which it later raised to $1.5B. More: - JPMorgan is using AI to give personalized advice to cardholders and share insights with client-coverage teams, among other initiatives, according to Teresa Heitsenrether, the bank's chief data and analytics officer.
- It's also been developing a GPT-powered investment adviser. The bank applied for a trademark for "IndexGPT," which would use AI-powered cloud software to analyze and choose financial securities for customers.
- Heitsenrether said JPMorgan has "hundreds" of AI use cases now, "some of which are somewhat close to coming to fruition."
- The bank is also working closely with U.S. regulators to make sure its generative AI projects are well-controlled.
Zoom out: - While JPMorgan is using AI to augment human work rather than replace it, the bank is actively hiring for AI-related positions.
- JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon recently predicted AI could cut workweeks to 3.5 days but acknowledges it will inevitably eliminate some jobs.
- Dimon said JPMorgan Chase aims to "redeploy" employees displaced by AI job losses.
The bigger picture: - By 2030, AI in banking is projected to generate over $300B in global business value, with around $99B in Asia Pacific, $86B in Europe, and $78B in North America.
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| 6 | | 🍋 FRESH FUNDING 🍋 - Alpheya has raised a $300M funding round to offer AI-powered wealth management services. The company, which is based in Abu Dhabi, plans to use the funds to build a wealth management technology platform for clients in the Middle East and Northern Africa.
- London-based AI startup PhysicsX has emerged from stealth with $32M in funding. The Series A funding round, led by General Catalyst, included participation from Standard Industries, NGP Energy, Radius Capital, and KKR co-founder and co-executive chairman Henry Kravis.
- Cradle, a Dutch biotech startup that leverages AI to design proteins, bagged $24M in Series A funding led by Index Ventures, with participation from Kindred Capital.
- Distributed data processing platform Expanso raised a seed round worth $7.5M led by General Catalyst and Hetz Ventures. Array Ventures participated in the funding round.
- Retail and e-commerce AI platform Birdseye bagged a $3M seed funding from Drive Capital.
For the latest on AI startup funding and more in the VC community, subscribe to our Inside Venture Capital newsletter. | | | |
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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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