Robots are no match for American football. The chorus of revolutionary promises about artificial intelligence might lead one to believe that no human activity is safe in an era of silicon smarts. But when it comes to live events – on traditional television, no less — AI can’t beat flesh-and-blood fervor. For the uninitiated, the National Football League broadcast of its championship game, dubbed the Super Bowl, is tantamount to a religious experience for many in the United States. On Sunday, millions gathered to watch the Philadelphia Eagles trounce the Kansas City Chiefs. The draw of the most-watched event

Masayoshi Son may be about to pull off his signature move – doubling down. Having already invested over $1.5 billion into OpenAI, the SoftBank boss could throw another $25 billion into the artificial intelligence company, according to a Financial Times report on Thursday. Previous double dips like WeWork and Uber have yielded distinctly mixed results, but the timing of the Japanese investor’s latest gambit deserves its own level of weird. As recently as last week, OpenAI might have seemed a sensible bet. The group run by Sam Altman, which launched ChatGPT in late 2022 and touted 100 million weekly active users within a year, was in

Getty Images’ $3.7 billion merger, including debt, with rival stock image seller Shutterstock is a picture-perfect template for more deals. Three big factors – potentially looser competition policing, the rise of artificial intelligence, and the benefits of combining aging tech stragglers – argue in favor of tie-ups. Key, though, is whether investors give buyers a long enough leash to strike acquisitions. Given the warm reception to the Tuesday announcement, which touts hefty savings, the scene is set. The outgoing administration of President Joe Biden was a nightmare for dealmakers. For four years, trustbusters opposed a host of combinations on novel legal grounds, slow-rolling approvals

It’s possible OpenAI is worth $157 billion; it just requires a bit of hand waving. Technology giants, venture capital firms, and the usual suspects in the hedge fund and investment world piled into the company started by Sam Altman to give the artificial intelligence company $6.6 billion in new funding. Assuming these investors want a return commensurate with risk, say 20% annually for a decade, OpenAI’s value needs to grow to $1 trillion. That doesn’t immediately compute. OpenAI estimates revenue will triple next year to $11.6 billion, and Altman thinks revenue could reach $100 billion by 2029 according to the New York

Today (September 3, 2024) I have attended an investment conference at which the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in the portfolio management processes was one of the topics discussed by a fund manager. After seeing the launch of generative AI within the wealth management business of some big banks in the U.S., the review of today’s presentation might be a good reality check with regard to the integration of AI in portfolio management processes. The manager runs three portfolios with the help of artificial intelligence. While two of these portfolios are totally relying on the decisions from AI, the AI

Are the biggest technology firms overinvesting in artificial intelligence? Probably. Meta Platforms’ $40 billion in capital spending this year, for example, will be around double what it allocated in 2021. Shareholders have been broadly supportive of that. But what happens if companies give away the results of their investment for free? That’s effectively what CEO Mark Zuckerburg is promising to do. His $1.1 trillion company says that its new AI models – the latest, Llama 3.1, was released on Tuesday – will be given to developers to tweak and freely use, plugging in their own data without having to share

Tech giants spending heavily on artificial intelligence will also need to invest in legal advice. Technology is full of natural monopolies, and computers that simulate human intelligence may be no different. That’s the hope of companies seeking to establish profitable empires, and the fear of regulators which prefer to act quickly to stop abusive actors from snuffing out competition. But the Federal Trade Commission may loom larger for Microsoft’s legal team than the Department of Justice will for Nvidia. The government agencies have divided up responsibility for leading investigations of the companies, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing two people

Apple has a cash problem. Not that it is lacking: The $2.8 trillion company produces over $100 billion of excess cash a year. But last week’s reveal that its top line shrank 4% last quarter – and an underwhelming event on Tuesday that launched upgraded iPads and a new Apple Pencil – show the company’s quandary. Tim Cook’s firm needs a better long-term growth plan. Investing in AI may be necessary, but it’s also too risky to go full steam ahead. Beefing up artificial intelligence capabilities seems like a natural way to launch into the next decade. Apple has grown its services

The stock-market hype around artificial intelligence turns out to be contagious. SoundHound, a company that makes AI-powered voice assistants for cars and customer-service lines, got a 76% share price boost on Thursday thanks to a newly disclosed investment from $1.8 trillion chipmaker Nvidia. It’s sensible for Nvidia boss Jensen Huang to spread his bets, even if some prove to be duds. But those hoping to ride his company’s coattails in pursuit of AI riches can’t say the same. Until this endorsement from what recently became the United States’ third-most valuable company, things didn’t look so great for SoundHound. Its shares were trading

Mobileye Global got thwacked by the same bullwhip that eventually comes around for all chipmakers. The maker of technology for autonomous-car systems warned on Thursday that its first-quarter revenue would fall to about half what it was around the same time last year because of customer stockpiling, knocking 25% off the company’s market value. Suppliers of semiconductors used in artificial intelligence are unlikely to be immune from similar gluts. Demand for products from Mobileye and its peers will keep rising. The average value of chips in each vehicle averaged $500 in 2020 and is forecast to reach $1,400 apiece in 2028, according to

For all the changes that technology has brought about, one thing will stay the same in 2024. Generation Alpha, kids born in the 2010s, are going to want to be “different” from their parents. For them, that means spending less time online. For companies counting on their data, that means life is about to get harder. Members of the youngest generation may have a role model in their slightly older peers when it comes to pushing back against an all-enveloping digital world. Globally, the amount of time people spent on social media declined year-over-year in 2023 for the first time since the

Sam Altman lost his job as OpenAI boss last month in the boardroom coup heard around the world. Four frenzied days later, with support from backer Microsoft and its Chief Executive Satya Nadella, he landed back in the top seat at the artificial intelligence startup. The incident unveiled profound tensions between OpenAI’s safety-driven, not-for-profit parent and the corporate entity it controls. Yet despite the whiplash, there’s a strong argument that the roughly $86 billion valuation OpenAI was seeking in a share sale prior to the ouster remains largely unchanged. OpenAI explicitly tasked its board with putting safety over profit. So it’s