Google is reportedly investing hundreds of millions of dollars in AI chatbot standout Character.AI just weeks after the world’s third largest cloud company agreed to pour $2 billion into AI startup Anthropic. The move shows that the generative AI wars between tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Amazon will likely continue to heat up in 2024.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based company is in talks to invest a large amount of money into the AI chatbot startup in order to form a deeper relationship with Character.AI, according to a report by Reuters. The AI startup was founded by former Google employees Daniel De Freitas and Noam Shazeer.
Character.AI provides chatbot services based on large language models (LLMs) that generate responses and open-ended conversations with users. The service became available in September 2022, followed by a $150 million funding round in March led by Andreessen Horowitz that valued the startup at $1 billion.
[Related: Microsoft, AWS, Google Cloud Market Share Q3 2023 Results]
The Menlo Park, Calif.-based startup currently leverages Google Cloud’s infrastructure and Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) to train its AI models on.ADVERTISEMENT
https://3b58d17fbfddf5903cb542dec51fe913.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html
Google’s conversational GenAI chatbot Bard became generally available earlier this year.
Character.AI’s Google Connection
The startup was founded by two key Google engineers who were part of the company’s AI DeepMind projects.
Character.AI CEO Shazeer spent over 21 years at Google as a Principal Software Engineer before co-founding the company with De Freitas in late 2021. Character.AI’s president De Freitas spent nearly a decade at Google in top senior research engineer roles.
The two spearheaded Google’s LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) dialogue system and conversation technology in 2020. The breakthrough technology is a collection of LLMs that work together to complete various generative AI tasks.
Google’s $2 Billion Anthropic Bet
In late October, Google unveiled it will invest up to $2 billion in AI startup Anthropic that included $500 million upfront.
Anthropic provides AI chatbot Claude which is a rival of OpenAI who owns ChatGPT. Claude is an GenAI assistant and foundation model based on the company’s research into training AI systems. OpenAI is backed heavily by Microsoft who has poured billions into OpenAI.
Microsoft, Amazon and Google are all competing to have AI startups use their cloud infrastructure and services for their AI technology and innovation.
Similar to Character.AI, Anthropic leverages Google Cloud’s services and TPUs.
Google’s massive investments in Anthropic and Character.AI shows the tech giant’s appetite in becoming a leader in the generative AI market. The largest IT companies in the world—Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia and many more—are investing billions in AI startups in a GenAI race that shows no signs of slowing down next year after a blistering pace in 2023.LEARN MORE: AI | Artificial Intelligence | Generative AI
Mark Haranas is an assistant news editor and longtime journalist now covering cloud, multicloud, software, SaaS and channel partners at CRN. He speaks with world-renown CEOs and IT experts as well as covering breaking news and live events while also managing several CRN reporters. He can be reached at [email protected].
RELATED CONTENT
Microsoft Ignite 2023: CEO Nadella Declares An ‘Age Of Copilots’Microsoft Ignite 2023: Nvidia CEO Huang Says Microsoft Is Now ‘More Collaborative And Partner-Oriented’Microsoft Azure Gets New Nvidia Service For Developing Custom GenAI AppsMicrosoft Ignite 2023: The Biggest News In AI, CopilotAI Star Quantiphi Inks AWS GenAI Collaboration Agreement TO TOPADVERTISEMENT
https://3b58d17fbfddf5903cb542dec51fe913.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html
TRENDING STORIES
- Broadcom-VMware Deal Hinges On Whether Chinese President Xi Is Happy With APEC Summit: Analysts | CRN
- In Broadcom-VMware Deal, All Eyes On APEC 2023 And Chinese President’s San Francisco Stop | CRN
- CrowdStrike’s New Version For SMBs: 5 Things To Know | CRN
- Breaking News | CRN
- Kyndryl CEO: Reselling ‘Other People’s Equipment’ Was ‘Empty Calorie Revenue’ | CRN