July 25, 2024

Little giants

Hi there, 

Here is this week's Hot or Not.

Hot: Small language models

Last week, 3 heavy hitters in AI released small language models: OpenAI, Hugging Face, and Mistral AI in partnership with Nvidia. 

It’s part of a growing trend we’ve been tracking of companies making models lighter-weight to bring them to more devices and a wider range of applications.

Here’s what you need to know.

Not: Wiz deal

Remember when Wiz was gonna be Google's largest M&A ever?

Yeah. Me too.

On Monday, Wiz walked away from the $23B deal saying it would pursue an IPO.

I hope no Wiz employees went out and bought Ferraris prematurely. 

We broke down what the deal would have meant for Wiz and the cybersecurity sector here — and check out Google’s biggest acquisitions of all time here.

Hot: Custom LLMs

LLM developer Cohere recently announced that it raised a $500M Series D at a $5.5B valuation.

This points to the broader trend of genAI investors favoring B2B business models.

Unlike its competitors, like OpenAI, Cohere doesn’t offer consumer-facing chatbots.

Rather, it’s focused on selling customized LLMs to businesses.

Its ability to tailor these models to specific tasks is a major selling point for buyers, like this AI leader at a fintech startup.

CBI customers can dig into additional buyer perspectives on Cohere right here.

Not: Ford’s EVs

Ford Model e — its electric vehicle division — recorded a $1.1B loss in its latest quarter. 

As it continues to face pricing pressures, the company is focused on developing lower-priced EVs in the $30-$40k range.

We map out Ford and 14 other automakers’ evolving tech strategies here.

I love you.

Anand 

@asanwal 

P.S. Want to dive into the AI strategies of the world’s largest companies, like Toyota, JPMorgan, and Johnson & Johnson? We got what you want in this report.

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