This Week in AI: September 2–8

This week, two major investigations by European authorities into AI-related issues concluded. The first is the Competition and Markets Authority's (CMA) investigation into the arrangement between Microsoft and Inflection AI, perhaps one of the most notorious cases of 'acqui-hiring' seen between a startup and a tech giant. Luckily for Microsoft, the CMA did not find any violation of competition legislation in the company's deal with Inflection, leading the regulator to close the case without opening a full-fledged investigation. However, the CMA did conclude that the arrangement between both companies qualifies as a merger, which means it will set a precedent, where future deals similar to this one could be subject to antitrust investigations, just as any regular merger would.

Relatedly, Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) published a press release announcing the conclusion of the legal process it started against Elon Musk's X with the Irish High Court on August 8. This is after the social media platform agreed to pause processing the data from the public posts it harvested without users' informed consent from May 7 to August 1, 2024. The company has also agreed to delete said posts. To the dismay of some, X seems to have gotten away from this battle quite easily, as the DPC found the issue was pressing enough to start a legal process, but not to fine the company for clearly violating the GDPR.

Still, X may not be completely off the hook, as Noyb - European Center for Digital Rights confirmed it will not withdraw its complaints against X's data collection policies, which still have to be examined by the DPC and followed up on through the standard procedures.

Other relevant headlines this week:

IdentifAI raised a €2.2M seed funding round to advance its deep fake detection technology: IdentifAI, a Milan-based startup, has raised €2.2 million to develop technology that can reliably identify whether a given artifact was created using generative AI, to promote a fair and transparent ecosystem where anyone can distinguish AI-generated content from human-created content.

Skillvue secured $2.8M to advance its skills-based recruitment and assessment platform: Skillvue, a Milan-based startup founded in 2021, has raised $2.8 million in pre-seed funding to develop an AI-powered platform that supports HR departments in adopting skills-based approaches to recruitment and assessment, addressing the changing skillset requirements in the modern workforce.

ChatGPT-powered voice assist is coming to some Volkswagen models in the US market: Volkswagen is launching its ChatGPT-integrated voice assistant in the US, starting with the 2025 Jetta and 2024 ID.4 models. The AI-powered system enhances the voice assistant's conversational experience but requires a subscription, with some models including free trials.

You.com launched a Team Plan as part of its Series B announcement: AI company You.com has secured $50 million in Series B funding to develop and expand its AI Productivity Engine which uses AI Agents to transform workflows across industries and offers collaborative features for teams and enterprises.

Root Signals secured $2.8M to advance LLM-as-a-judge techniques in enterprise settings: Root Signals, a Helsinki and Palo Alto-based startup, has secured $2.8M in funding to develop its platform that automates LLM evaluations using LLM-as-a-judge techniques, addressing challenges in LLM performance prediction and helping ensure safe, accurate outputs for various applications.

Anthropic has launched a new plan with features tailored to enterprise users: Anthropic has launched Claude for Enterprise, a new plan that boosts the capabilities of the known features Artifacts and Projects with a 500K token context window, enhanced security and administrative controls, GitHub integration, and the ability to upload proprietary information.

Sakana AI raised $100+M in Series A funding and scored a partnership with NVIDIA: Tokyo-based Sakana AI secures $100M+ in Series A funding led by NEA, Khosla Ventures, Lux Capital, and supported by NVIDIA. Sakana AI will also collaborate with NVIDIA to develop relevant AI technology for Japan and support the local AI community.

Through several initiatives, the Cosmos Institute will ensure AI aligns with human flourishing: The Cosmos Institute, a multidisciplinary initiative at the intersection of philosophy and AI, promotes a balanced approach to AI development through four key programs: the HAI Lab at Oxford, a fellowship program, a grants program, and educational offerings.

The Council of Europe opened a first-ever international legally binding AI safety treaty for signatures: The Council of Europe has developed and opened signatures on an international AI safety treaty to establish responsible AI development and use principles. The treaty's negotiations involved member, observer, and non-member states, and global representatives from various sectors in its creation.

All Hands AI secures $5M in seed to boost its open-source AI software development agent: All Hands AI has raised $5 million in seed funding to develop OpenHands: an open-source, AI-powered software development agent that autonomously solves end-to-end tasks, which has already gained significant traction in GitHub.

New YouTube tools to protect creators' and public figures' likenesses: YouTube is developing new AI technologies, including synthetic singing identification and AI-generated face detection, to protect creators and artists while promoting responsible AI use, emphasizing that AI should enhance human creativity rather than replace it.

Google announced early access for the Ask Photos feature and updated its virtual try-on tool: Google has introduced new AI-powered features for Photos, including an improved search function and the Gemini-powered "Ask Photos" feature for US users. Google also updated its virtual try-on tool to include dresses, enhancing photo organization and online shopping experiences.

Microsoft will partner with StopNCII to tackle the non-consensual spread of intimate images: Microsoft is intensifying efforts to combat non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII), including AI-generated deepfakes, by partnering with StopNCII for detection in Bing.

01.AI's Yi-Coder delivers state-of-the-art coding performance in a small, open-source package: 01.AI has released Yi-Coder, an open-source large language model for coding tasks that, despite its relatively small size (1.5B and 9B parameters), outperforms larger models in various benchmarks and excels in various code-related tasks and program-aided mathematical reasoning.

The SAG-AFTRA Video Game Strike scored two major victories this week: Games studio Lightspeed L.A. and 80 video games have agreed to SAG-AFTRA's tiered and interim agreements including AI protections for talent, demonstrating that the union's proposed terms are reasonable and achievable.

Capsa AI secured £1.7M to transform private equity due diligence with AI: Capsa AI, a startup founded less than a year ago, has raised £1.7m in seed funding to expand its AI-powered platform that streamlines due diligence processes for private equity firms. The Capsa AI platform has demonstrated significant time savings for early adopters.