This Week in AI: July 8

Some of this week's headlines touched upon two recurring topics when writing about the generative AI rush: regulations and hardware. News about regulations is bound to become commonplace as new laws and rules are approved and enter into force, as is the case with the European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and AI Act, among others.

The European Commission communicated to X (formerly Twitter) its preliminary view that the social media platform, one of the first to be considered a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) under European legislation, is in breach of the DSA in areas related to dark patterns, transparency about advertising, and willingness to grant access to its data for research purposes. X has the right to a defense, so it can now review the Commission's claims and deliver a written reply compelling enough to resolve the matter in X's favor. However, if the Commission's preliminary findings are confirmed, X's non-compliant status could lead to significant fines and other corrective measures to enforce compliance.

In a subtler move in the opposite direction, Microsoft took action to take attention away from itself by stepping down from its observer role on OpenAI's board. Microsoft decided to step down from the board because it no longer saw its role as necessary. OpenAI established that there would no longer be non-voting seats for external observers on its board, thus scrapping the plan that Apple also became an observer. Although neither party stated it openly, the announcements come as both companies face increased scrutiny from market regulators in Europe, the UK, and the US.

While investigations into what may be unfair market practices unfold, the rush to find ways to develop and market a tenable alternative to NVIDIA's ecosystem, or even earn a decent seat at the chipmaking table, continues. Graphcore, a chipmaker developing intelligence processing units and struggling to make ends meet, was finally acquired by the SoftBank Group Corp. for an undisclosed amount. AMD, for its part, has acquired Europe's largest private AI lab, Silo AI, for $665 million, expanding its AI capabilities and strengthening its position in the global AI solutions market.

Video generation continues to be all the rage in generative AI applications, as the AI-powered video editing and generation platform Captions raised $60 million in Series C funding, bringing its total funding to over $100 million and valuing the company at $500 million. The company also announced its plan to invest $100 million in AI video research in New York City. Similarly, DreamFlare AI, a platform for creating, streaming, and monetizing AI-generated interactive video content emerged from stealth after securing $1.6 million in funding.

Finally, from the looks of this week's news, it may be that a new trend is emerging: the disparity between big corporations and smaller businesses is commented on, especially on how the lack of financial and human resources severely limits the access organizations have to generative AI solutions. This week, two startups focusing on solutions tailored to the needs of (really) small and medium-sized businesses secured funding rounds. Tel Aviv-based startup Enso has launched a Guided AI Agents platform with $6 million in seed funding. In parallel, HERO Software, an AI-powered platform initially created to combat climate change, has raised €40 million in Series B funding to expand its comprehensive workflow management solution for tradespeople across Europe.

Other notable headlines for the week include:

Hebbia closed a $130M Series B for its knowledge retrieval platform: Hebbia, an AI startup revolutionizing how knowledge workers use AI, has secured $130 million in Series B funding to continue the development of its innovative platform that allows users to instruct AI agents to complete complex tasks with full transparency.

Thrive AI Health will make hyper-personalized AI health coaches a reality: OpenAI Startup Fund and Thrive Global have launched Thrive AI Health to develop an AI-powered health coach to democratize access to personalized health coaching across five key behaviors to contribute to combating chronic diseases and transform healthcare.

Quora's Poe can now create web apps directly on the chat interface: Quora's AI chatbot platform Poe has introduced Previews, which allows users to create and share interactive web apps directly within chat interfaces with multi-chatbot, file upload, and video input support.

Anthropic launched advanced prompt evaluation tools for its developer console: Anthropic has introduced new features in its developer console, including prompt generation, test case creation, and evaluation tools powered by Claude, to streamline creating and refining high-quality prompts for AI applications, making advanced prompt engineering more accessible to developers.

Writer announced enterprise-ready features are coming to its chatbots: Writer has launched significant upgrades to its enterprise chat apps, including built-in RAG technology, explainable AI features, dedicated task modes, and enhanced customization options. The features aim to improve accuracy, transparency, and user experience for businesses building AI applications.

Infinite Reality secures $350M and acquires Landvault in major expansion move: Infinite Reality has secured a $350 million investment and acquired Landvault for $450 million, boosting its valuation to $5.1 billion and expanding its capabilities in immersive technologies and digital experiences across global markets.

AWS is launching App Studio to democratize enterprise-ready AI application development: AWS has introduced App Studio, a generative AI-powered service that eliminates the learning curve to low-code tools to enable professionals with some technical expertise to create, manage, and deploy generative AI applications.

Helsing, a defense tech startup, raised $487M and announced its plans to expand to the Baltic region: Germany-based defense AI startup Helsing has raised €450 million in a Series C funding round led by General Catalyst, which it plans to use for product development, R&D, and expansion into the Baltic region, highlighting its mission to enhance European defense capabilities through AI technology.

Amazon's AI-powered assistant Rufus is now available for US customers in the Amazon app: Amazon has launched Rufus, an AI-powered shopping assistant, to all US customers in its mobile app. Rufus offers personalized product recommendations, comparisons, and shopping advice powered by a specialized large language model trained on Amazon's catalog and web-sourced information.

AWS and Workday announced a strategic partnership to deliver business-ready AI capabilities: AWS and Workday have expanded their partnership to develop generative AI capabilities, enhance native integrations for custom applications, and collaborate on market initiatives, aiming to accelerate cloud transformation and improve enterprise productivity and decision-making for their customers.