In the fifth episode of the AI Bros podcast, both Bruce and John share their hot takes, perspective and journey with AI as they learn and use it in their lives. The AI Bros podcast is where artificial intelligence meets real talk.

It’s interesting, fun and informative. Subscribe, Like, Follow, and Share the AI Bros to your favorite social media platforms. The AI Bros podcast is a weekly series, and a part of the Neural News Network, and the (A)bsolutely (I)ncredible podcast channel.

John Lawson III is the CEO of ColderICE Media and is highly recognized in e-commerce, and AI. John is an Amazon #1 best-selling author, IBM Futurist, and an eBay Influencer. He’s celebrated as one of the Top 100 Small Business Influencers in America, and crowned "Savviest in Social Medial" by StartUp Nation. You can connect with John directly on his website at johnlawson. com.

John is an internationally-recognized keynote speaker, a “Commerce Evangelist” and an absolute wealth of knowledge on all things e-retail, and online marketing strategy. John is a pioneer in the online retail vertical space, and founder of The E-commerce Group, a global community of e-commerce vendors, and online marketers.

The Neural News Network was founded by Bruce Burke as a Substack newsletter, but now has grown to include daily AI news shorts, interviews with thought leaders, and the AI Bros podcast. Future plans include fully automating the Neural News platform.

Remuneration Labs is the startup behind the Neural News Network, and its growing lineup of media properties. The lab provides marketing services that utilize artificial intelligence, including AI Voice Agents that support and promote your brand. Video Content, Social Media, Chatbots, as well as AI-Powered Sales and Support Agents.

If you’d like to be interviewed as a guest and have brand or product featured contact us to arrange a meeting. We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their support and we look forward to continued growth. But for now Subscribe, Like, Follow and Share for more AI news - https://remunerationlabs.substack. com

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Nvidia is planning to build Taiwan’s first AI supercomputer while deepening partnerships with local heavyweights Foxconn and TSMC, as tariffs test global supply chains. The maker of artificial-intelligence chips announced the move at industry conference Computex on Monday in Taipei, among a flurry of rollouts including a product for companies to build semicustom chips.

Nvidia said it will develop the AI supercomputer with Foxconn Technology Group and the Taiwan government to support researchers and enterprises. Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer, will provide the AI infrastructure, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. researchers plan to use the system to advance research and development.

By building this AI factory with Nvidia and TSMC, we are laying the groundwork to connect people in Taiwan as well as government organizations and enterprises, Young Liu, chairman and CEO of Foxconn, said in a statement. Nvidia also expanded partnerships with system manufacturers in Taiwan, including Acer and Asus, with which it will build new high-performance desktop supercomputers.

In his keynote address at Computex, Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang said the company is planning a new hub in Taiwan, calling it an ideal nexus for AI advancement. The AI giant’s push in Taiwan come as the industry weighs developments around U.S. tariffs that threaten supply chains. It stands to reason that Taiwan [is] at the center of the most advanced industry, the epicenter where AI and robotics is going to come from, Huang said. This is also the largest electronics manufacturing region in the world.

More on NVIDIA’s open platform on the Wall Street Journal

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Earlier this week, Anthropic received a $2.5 billion, five-year revolving credit line to amp up its liquidity in an ever-expanding — and expensive — competition in the artificial intelligence industry. Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI research executives, launched its Claude chatbot in March 2023.

The company closed its latest funding round in March at a $61.5 billion valuation, and the new credit facility adds to that. The company said it plans to use it to strengthen its balance sheet and invest as it scales rapidly. Annualized revenue reached $2 billion in the first quarter, the company confirmed, more than doubling from a $1 billion rate in the prior period.

Revenue chief Kate Jensen said in a recent interview with CNBC that the number of customers spending more than $100,000 annually with Anthropic jumped eightfold from a year ago. Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, [Royal Bank of Canada] and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group all participated in the credit facility.

Companies are seeking more funding and liquidity than ever before as the AI arms race intensifies. The generative AI market is poised to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade. Companies from Google and Amazon to Anthropic and Perplexity are racing to announce new products and features, especially as the race to build “AI agents” intensifies.

“This revolving credit facility provides Anthropic significant flexibility to support our continued exponential growth,” Krishna Rao, Anthropic’s finance chief, said in a statement.

More on Anthropic’s $2.5 Billion credit line on CNBC

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Data analytics startup Databricks said Wednesday that it's buying Neon, a cloud-based database software vendor, for about $1 billion. It's the latest big deal for Databricks, which bought artificial intelligence model training startup MosaicML for $1.3 billion in 2023 and paid over $1 billion last year for data optimization startup Tabular.

Neon has over 18,000 customers, Databricks said in a statement. Clients include OpenAI, Adobe, Boston Consulting Group, Replit and Vercel, according to Neon's website. Many developers have flocked to Neon, which is open source and billed as an alternative to top cloud provider Amazon Web Services' Aurora Postgres database service. The open-source PostgreSQL database originated in the 1980s. Supabase, a startup whose tools have become popular with "vibe-coding" tools such as Lovable and Figma's recently announced Figma Make, is also based on PostgreSQL.

Cloud providers Google and Microsoft have their own options for running PostgreSQL databases. Databricks sells software that can help with cleaning up data, executing queries and running AI models.

Microsoft, Snowflake and Databricks have all invested in Neon, whose co-founder and CEO is former Meta and Microsoft engineer Nikita Shamgunov. After leaving Meta, Shamgunov ran database startup SingleStore, formerly known as MemSQL. Neon charges based on the amount of computing and storage each customer uses per month. Its software can run in Amazon and Microsoft's clouds.

More on Databricks acquisition of Neon on CNBC

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The transformative power and rapid uptake of artificial intelligence have drawn users and businesses alike. By 2030, the AI market will surpass $826 billion. With the rising adoption of generative AI, Gartner reports that by next year, 30 percent of enterprises will automate at least half of their network traffic.

But here comes the speed breaker. With AI tools so widely accessible, employees are bringing unsanctioned AI tools to work, such as AI chatbots, machine learning models for data analysis, and coding review assistants. According to a Microsoft study, 80 percent of employees last year were using unauthorized apps. Given that 38 percent of users exchange sensitive information with AI tools without company approval, a new threat known as shadow AI is hatching far-reaching security risks, including data exposure, inaccurate business decisions, and compliance issues.

More employees are incorporating AI tools into their daily work routines. Marketing teams are finding the magic of ChatGPT good for automating email and social media campaigns and creating images. Finance teams are using AI data visualization tools to create patterns that provide deeper insight into company expenditures. Despite impressive outcomes, these tools are subject to shadow AI risk if organizations are unaware of their use.

Rather than pulling company-sanctioned material, a customer service team resorting to unauthorized AI chatbots to answer a customer query may betray inconsistent or misleading information, potentially sharing confidential or proprietary data. Without altering the nature of work, shadow AI is substituting some form of human work and granting more autonomy to AI, introducing novel vulnerabilities.

For example, under shadow IT, a Salesforce analyst is still performing the same underlying work. However, the same analyst using unauthorized AI tools to interpret customer behavior based on a proprietary data set can inadvertently reveal sensitive information in the process. Because of the abuse of shadow AI, most CISOs (75 percent) think insider threats are a greater risk than external attacks.

More on AI increasing insider threat risk on Inc.

I’ve partnered with DBC Technologies and I am now consulting with companies who are interested in automating inbound and outbound messaging with AI Voice Agents.

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AI21, an Israeli startup building its own large language models (LLMs), is raising a $300 million Series D funding round, according to a source with knowledge of the deal. The valuation could not be learned. The company last raised $208 million at a $1.4 billion valuation in 2023. This round would bring the company's total funding to $636 million.

AI21 was founded in 2017 by entrepreneurs and AI researchers Amnon Shashua (founder and CEO of Mobileye), Professor Yoav Shoham (Professor Emeritus at Stanford University and former Principal Scientist at Google), and Ori Goshen (serial entrepreneur and founder of CrowdX).

While many AI startups rely on existing LLMs built by companies like Anthropic or OpenAI, AI21 is building its LLMs from the ground up. Its goal is to make generative AI more dependable for companies by reducing hallucinations, which are when LLMs present false information as fact. In March, AI21 launched an AI orchestration system called Maestro it says is capable of reducing hallucinations by 50% and boosting reasoning model accuracy to over 95%.

Existing investors in AI21 include Google, Nvidia, Intel Capital, Walden Catalyst, Pitango, SCB10X, b2venture, Samsung Next, Comcast Ventures, and Ahren Innovation Capital. Customers include FNAC, Capgemini, and website builder Wix.

About $7 billion in investment went to AI-related startups last month, representing 30% of venture funding worldwide, according to Crunchbase data.

Israeli tech companies have raised more than $12 billion in 2024, up 31% from 2023, according to Startup Nation Central. Israeli cybersecurity company Wix was just acquired by Google for $32 billion, the search giant's largest ever acquisition.

More on AI21’s fundraising and AI efforts on Business Insider

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I’ve partnered with DBC Technologies, and I am now consulting with companies who are interested in automating inbound and outbound messaging with AI Voice Agents.

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In this fourth episode of the AI Bros podcast Bruce and John talk about everything from Sam Altman’s second phase of the World rollout with more locations, to ChatGTP being kind to Bruce about the notion of AI Bros.

Both Bruce and John share their hot takes, perspective and journey with AI as they learn it and use it in their lives.

The AI Bros podcast is where artificial intelligence meets real talk. It’s interesting, fun and informative. Subscribe, Like, Follow, and Share the AI Bros to your favorite social media platforms. The AI Bros podcast is a weekly series, and a part of the Neural News Network, and the (A)bsolutely (I)ncredible podcast channel.

John Lawson III is the CEO of ColderICE Media and is highly recognized in e-commerce, and AI. John is an Amazon #1 best-selling author, IBM Futurist, and an eBay Influencer. He’s celebrated as one of the Top 100 Small Business Influencers in America, and crowned "Savviest in Social Medial" by StartUp Nation. You can connect with John directly on his website at www.johnlawson. comJohn is an internationally-recognized keynote speaker, a “Commerce Evangelist” and an absolute wealth of knowledge on all things e-retail, and online marketing strategy. John is a pioneer in the online retail vertical space, and founder of The E-commerce Group, a global community of e-commerce vendors, and online marketers.

The Neural News Network was founded by Bruce Burke as a Substack newsletter, but now has grown to include daily AI news shorts, interviews, and the AI Bros podcast. Future plans include fully automating the news platform.

Remuneration Labs is the startup behind the Neural News Network, and its growing lineup of media properties. The lab provides marketing services that utilize artificial intelligence, including AI Voice Agents that support and promote your brand. Video Content, Social Media, Chatbots, as well as AI-Powered Sales and Support Agents.

If you’d like to be interviewed as a guest and have brand or product featured contact us to arrange a meeting. We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their support and we look forward to continued growth.

But for now Subscribe, Like, Follow and Share for more. Subscribe to Neural News Network and (A)bsolutely (I)ncredible Podcast: https://remunerationlabs.substack. com

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Investors hoping to back former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati's buzzy new AI startup are being asked to commit a minimum of $50 million, according to two sources with knowledge of the deal. Murati is raising around $2 billion of capital at a $10 billion valuation for Thinking Machines Lab, BI previously reported. Multiple sources say the megaround, led by Andreessen Horowitz, is nearing the final stages of fundraising.

A spokesperson for Thinking Machines Lab declined to comment. A spokesperson for A16z did not respond to a request for comment. The round is not finalized, and the details could change. The financing would almost certainly rank as one of the largest seed rounds in history, which typically range in the low to mid-single digits. A $50 million check size is beyond the scope of most traditional seed investors because it would represent a substantial percentage, if not their entire fund.

The minimum requirement and rich valuation reflect feverish investor enthusiasm for generative AI and the reality that there are a very limited number of technical founders with Murati's expertise and the team she has assembled. It's also enormously expensive to train AI models and recruit and retain top talent.

Murati spent over six years at OpenAI, where she worked on the development of ChatGPT and other AI research initiatives. She was briefly appointed interim CEO in November 2023 after OpenAI's board abruptly fired Sam Altman, a move that sparked turmoil within the company. After Altman's reinstatement as CEO, Murati resumed her role as CTO.

It has been a widely discussed mystery what exactly Thinking Machines will do to distinguish itself in a crowded and well-funded field that includes not only OpenAI but also Anthropic, Elon Musk's xAI, and Google's Gemini. In a blog post earlier this year, Murati positioned the startup as an artificial intelligence research and product lab focused on making AI more accessible.

More on Thinking Machines investments on Business Insider

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Artificial intelligence is not just infiltrating the startup world. Now credit card giants Visa and Mastercard are getting into the AI game. Visa announced on Wednesday Intelligent Commerce, which it says enables AI to find and buy.

AI agents will be able to shop and make purchases on behalf of consumers, based on preselected preferences. In a statement, Visa chief product and strategy officer Jack Forestell said: Each consumer sets the limits, and Visa helps manage the rest.

Visa says that it is collaborating with a mix of tech giants and startups to develop AI-powered shopping experiences that are more personal, more secure, and more convenient. Those companies include Anthropic, IBM, Microsoft, Mistral AI, OpenAI, Perplexity, Samsung, and Stripe, among others.

The move follows Mastercard’s announcement on Tuesday that it would give AI agents the ability to shop online for consumers. Mastercard said its new Agent Pay offering will enhance generative AI conversations for people and businesses alike by integrating payments into tailored recommendations and insights already provided on conversational platforms.

In a statement, it said: This means that for a soon-to-be-30-year-old planning her milestone birthday party, she can now chat with an AI agent to proactively curate a selection of outfits and accessories from local boutiques and online retailers based on her style, the venue’s ambience, and weather forecasts. Based on her preferences and feedback, the intelligent agent can make the purchase, and also recommend the best way to pay, for example, using Mastercard One Credential.

Mastercard said it will work with Microsoft on new use cases to scale agentic commerce, as well as with IBM, Braintree, and Checkout.com on other aspects of AI-powered shopping. Visa and Mastercard aren’t the only ones allowing for AI-powered shopping. On Tuesday, PayPal announced its own agentic commerce offering.

More on AI-powered shopping on TechCrunch

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The crush of traffic going into training and running AI has quickly turned into a major cost and resource headache for organizations. Today, Cast AI, a startup building tools to ease and optimize workloads for AI and other tasks with automation, is raising a major round of funding on the back of strong growth and partnerships with major players in the space.

The company has raised a $108 million Series C that it will be using for more R&D and to expand its business in core markets like the U.S. and elsewhere. Sources familiar with the deal told TechCrunch that the round has the company at near unicorn valuation, post-money — close to $900 million from what I understand.

It’s all about GPU, compute, and electricity, said Yuri Frayman, Cast’s CEO and co-founder. Our play is to ensure that we create efficiency, to be able to promote more workloads across GPUs. That is what we are about.

For context, when Cast last raised capital, $35 million in November 2023, it was valued at $300 million post-money, per PitchBook. Prior to this latest round, the startup had raised just over $86 million. Cast AI is based out of Miami, Florida, but is heavily situated in Europe, and Frayman describes it as a European company, with most of its development done in Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria.

It has amassed 2,100 customers in the last three years of business. Companies like Akamai, BMW, FICO, Hugging Face, NielsenIQ, and Swisscom are among those using its technology to analyze cloud and on-premise capacity and find the optimal cost-performance ratio for distributing compute workloads across them. Frayman says it integrates with all major cloud providers and anything else that a customer may be using.

More on Cast AI’s fundraising and efficiency on TechCrunch

Agentic AI for the Enterprise | Inbound and Outbound AI Voice Agents

I’ve partnered with DBC Technologies and I am now consulting with companies who are interested in automating inbound and outbound messaging with AI Voice Agents.

I interviewed DBC Technologies Founder and CEO, Dennis Wilson last week for an episode of the (A)bsolutely (I)ncredible Podcast, watch to learn more about AI voice.

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