Your weekly briefing on all things AI

Leadership can’t be overlooked when evaluating the potential any company has to navigate this challenging landscape and grow. This week, we see some examples of how the positions at the top can impact the overall perception & investability of a company.

Let’s dive in:

📰 Amazon adds Andrew Ng to its Board of Directors 

📈 Former Tesla Engineer Leads Symbolica to Raise $31M

💡 AI in Healthcare: Shaping the Future of Oncology

🛠️ Tools to Transform Your Content Strategy

📰 AI in the News

Amazon adds AI Expert Andrew Ng to its board of directors

Amazon has brought AI expert Andrew Ng onto its board of directors, highlighting the company's increasing focus on AI. With a $4 billion investment in Anthropic and the launch of AI tools like business chatbot Q and shopping assistant Rufus, Amazon is clearly investing heavily in AI's potential. CEO Andy Jassy believes that generative AI may be the biggest technological breakthrough since cloud computing, and “perhaps since the internet.” (Full Story)

More Stories

• Elon Musk predicts AI will be smarter than humans by next year. (link)

• MIT Engineers Aim to advance household robots with AI integration. (link)

• Technology tourism is hampering the rollout of AI and deep-tech. (link)

• Spotify launches AI playlists created with personalized prompts. (link)

• Moonshot AI’s chatbot on course to catch Baidu’s ERNIE bot. (link)

• Google announces new AI-powered app called Google Vids. (link)

• Mastercard reorg shows urgent industry focus on AI. (link)

• Alphabet nears $2 trillion market capitalization. (link)

📈 Venture Deals 

Symbolica, under former tesla engineer’s leadership, secures $31M to develop AI systems challenging OpenAI

AI startup Symbolica, has secured $31 million in funding, led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from General Catalyst, Abstract Ventures, and Buckley Ventures. Under the leadership of CEO George Morgan, formerly of Tesla, Symbolica is exploring alternative AI tech that goes beyond the popular "transformer" models used by OpenAI's ChatGPT. Morgan believes that diversifying from transformers can unlock new possibilities in AI. Symbolica's first product, a coding assistant, is slated for launch in early 2025 after comprehensive model development and training. (Full Story)

More Venture Deals

• Basemark raises $23.9M for AI-driven car vision and AR. (link)

• EarliTec Diagnostics secures $21.5M for early autism detection. (link)

• Andesite AI nets $15.25M for AI-enhanced cybersecurity analytics. (link)

• Nymiz raises €2.8M for data privacy amid generative AI. (link)

• Archetype AI raises $13M for its Newton™ physical world model. (link)

• Symbolica secures $31M to develop AI systems challenging OpenAI. (link)

• Stanhope AI captures £2.3M for predictive modeling using real-time data. (link)

• TrojAI nets $5.75M for enterprise-level AI security solutions. (link)

• Sifthub raises $5.5M to optimize sales processes with AI. (link)

• Procurement Sciences AI collects $10M to transform government contract development. (link)

💡 Industry Impacts

🏥 Healthcare

Oncology Meets AI: AI is transforming cancer management by providing quick access to data for diagnosis and treatment planning. FDA-approved tools like Tempus One and DermaSensor highlight AI's potential to improve clinical practice and diagnostic accuracy. AI assists in interpreting complex tumor data and enables personalized treatment plans through efficient data processing, driven by GPU advancements. Despite concerns about data interpretation, bias, and privacy, AI's integration into healthcare devices is advancing, with expectations to significantly transform patient care and research capabilities in oncology over the next 5 to 10 years. (link)

🔐 Cyber Security

Elevating Cybersecurity with GenAI Technology: SentinelOne's Purple AI is an AI-driven cyber security tool designed to enhance threat detection and response efficiency. It delivers significant time and cost savings, with users reporting an 80% faster threat hunting capability, due to its advanced GenAI technology, as highlighted by Ric Smith, SentinelOne’s CPO. The tool addresses global cybersecurity challenges, including talent shortages and rising cyber threats, earning praise from users like Richard Bailey of PruittHealth Connect Inc.  Purple AI simplifies threat investigations by converting natural language into actionable insights, offering an effective solution for cybersecurity teams. (link)

⚖️ Legal

OpenAI's Legal Struggles Amid Expansion: OpenAI faces lawsuits from Sarah Silverman and authors over copyright issues, as well as a suit from Elon Musk for not adhering to its nonprofit goals. Regulatory investigations by the SEC and FTC are examining potential violations related to data leaks and ChatGPT's claims. To address these, OpenAI has expanded its legal team, hired top law firms, and is recruiting specialized lawyers. With its workforce growing to 1,000 employees, OpenAI emphasizes its national security role against foreign AI competitors and sees regulatory scrutiny as an opportunity to align with national interests. (link)

🛠️ Tool of the Week

For more sophisticated content creation, use Aithor AI – created for students to aid in academic writing, Aithor can be a great tool for polishing/creating white papers for B2B lead magnets, or to describe your products/services to a more academic audience. The cite feature, is a useful tool for creating content that meets Google’s increasingly rigorous EATT criteria for ranking pages.

More Writing and Content Creation Tools

• Hypotenuse AI: A writing tool specializing in understanding your brand voice.

• Word AI: A writing tools specializing in re-writes. Bulk re-writes and APIs open up interesting use cases.

• Jasper AI: One of the first AI writing tools on the market, with a robust library of templated prompts.

• SEOwind: A results oriented AI content writer created and maintained by true SEO practitioners.