May 22, 2024

Close shave

Hi there, 

When I saw the news that Apple plans to launch a thinner iPhone in 2025...

...I thought of this classic Onion piece about Gillette from 2004.

Source: The Onion

The elephant in the room is AI. 

While Apple was early to the game with its voice assistant Siri in 2011, it’s yet to make a major move in the generative AI era. 

And OpenAI’s voice capabilities unveiled last week were what Siri should have / could have become but hasn't yet (although ideally less flirty than what OpenAI showed).

Apple added another two early-stage AI & computer vision companies to its string of AI acquisitions in recent months.

Reports suggest it may partner with OpenAI to incorporate ChatGPT into the iPhone, which is letting the fox into the henhouse in my estimation. 

The reality is that Apple is behind big tech peers like Microsoft and Google in terms of a clear AI strategy.  

Despite repeated questions on earnings calls about its genAI plans, CEO Tim Cook has been cagey thus far, as seen on CBI:

We’ll have to wait for its developer conference on June 10, when Apple’s expected to unveil more of its AI strategy. 

Just go with Reddit

Reddit announced a licensing deal with OpenAI last week.

OpenAI will gain access to Reddit data it can use to train its LLMs.

In return, Reddit will offer new OpenAI-powered features to its users/moderators.

With LLMs requiring vast amounts of training data — and the available supply of that data dwindling — expect to see deals like this proliferate quickly.

Last year, we identified 21 licensing targets (including Reddit) for tech giants building LLMs here.

Flirty AI

So OpenAI’s voice assistant being a tad flirtatious is yet another sign of where AI is going.

We talked about AI relationships & AI companions in our generative AI trends report.

It’s not a matter of if. It’s just a matter of when.

Yes — the birth rate is definitely going to continue to fall in the developed world.

Wonderful world

Corporate venture capital (CVC) firms participated in deals collectively worth $15B in Q1’24.

This was the strongest quarter for CVC-backed funding since Q3’22.

The No. 1 deal of the quarter? Surprising. The No. 2 deal? Not so much.

1. Food delivery platform Wonder ($700M)
2. Humanoid robot developer Figure ($675M)

Dig deeper into the top CVC deals of Q1’24 in our State of CVC Report.

Use protection

As LLMs evolve, so do the threats they face.

Enterprises deploying these models are grappling with issues like:

• Data poisoning — corrupting or modifying training data to compromise the model
• Jailbreaking — tricking the LLM into producing malicious outputs that bypass safety protocols
• Prompt injection — manipulating the input prompt to override the LLM's original instructions

Security incidents can be costly on multiple fronts, compelling some cos to drop hundreds of thousands of dollars to secure their LLMs.

We mined our Analyst Briefings and software buyer interviews to discover exactly how much execs are spending on LLM security — check out the results here.

Industry Standard

Business Insider. Rebecca Torrence (@RebeccaTorrenc5) discusses potential mental health IPOs and mentions CB Insights lead analyst Alexander Lennox-Miller.

Los Angeles Times. Wendy Lee (@thewendylee) and Samantha Masunaga (@smasunaga) explore the venture capital environment in LA and mention CB Insights research.

TechCrunch. Rebecca Szkutak (@rebecca_szkutak) takes a look at Sagetap and cites CB Insights data.

I love you. 

Anand 

@asanwal 

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