ChatGPT, Silicon Valley’s newest app, has investors scrambling to find the next big thing in generalized AI, a technology some hail as the start of a new era in big tech. .
Artificial intelligence (AI) is present more and more in daily life life for decades, but the November launch of the chat robot from the start-up OpenAI has marked a turning point in the perception of the public and investors.
“We regularly have platforms pop up and lead to an explosion of new companies. We’ve seen this with Internet and mobile, and AI could be the next platform,” said Shernaz Daver of California-based Khosla Ventures.
Innovative AI, of which ChatGPT is an example, combs through thousands of data to create original content – an image, a poem, a thousand-word essay – in seconds and on a simple request .
Since its sporadic release in late November, ChatGPT has become one of the fastest growing apps application ever and push Microsoft And Google rushed to launch projects that had so far been carefully guarded because of concerns that the technology was not ready to go public.
“Just five days after its release, one million people were using ChatGPT – about 60 times faster than Facebook to reach a million users,” said Wayne Hu, a partner at SignalFire, another venture capital firm.
“Suddenly, all the investors were talking about how ChatGPT could eliminate millions of knowledge worker jobs, disrupt trillion-dollar industries, and fundamentally change the way things are done,” he said. we learn, consume and make decisions”.
The AI boom comes at another difficult time for the tech sector, with tens of thousands of layoffs taking place at the world’s largest companies as well as smaller ones. are struggling to survive.
“While other categories are facing declines in valuation and funding, innovative AI companies are not,” said Daver.
Hu said that the market valuation for innovative AI companies has been sky-high, while they have contracted everything else.
– ‘Hard to keep up’ –
OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, is valued at nearly $30 billion by Microsoft, he said, despite still burning money at a high rate.
Entrepreneurs specializing in artificial intelligence say they no longer need to scream for attention when hunting for cash or going through the details of what they are trying to offer.
“It has made it possible for non-specialists to extract technical data from databases using queries in everyday languages,” says Sarah Nagy, founder of Seek AI, a startup that allows non-specialists to extract technical data from databases using queries in everyday languages. help us a lot.
“Before ChatGPT… I had to explain what general AI is and why it matters,” she added.
Now, the demand for ChatGPT-like functions seems to be limitless and not just from investors.
“Demand from customers has increased a lot,” Nagy said. “It’s hard to keep up, because we’re still a small company.”
The entrepreneur wants to grow his team, and according to Daver, while the trend is downsizing, “we’re currently hiring” artificial intelligence.
Over the past few weeks, it has been mainly the giants that have been in the news, first and foremost Microsoft, an OpenAI partner and investor, followed by Google, which is trying to keep up.
But in their shadow, a host of startups also have proposed ideas.
Other recent examples of funding rounds include California-based Kognitos, which aims to automate administrative tasks, and a platform for Poly designers that can create graphics or maps 3D in seconds.
In addition to the usual venture capitalists, tech giants are also in the spotlight, such as Google, which just invested $300 million to buy a 10% stake in new company Anthropic and Claude’s chatbot. this company.
Hu said the ChatGPT “gold rush” could be unprecedented and extend beyond Creative AI because the technology itself minimizes the need for computer programmers or designers to execute ideas.
“Now you no longer need to get a Stanford PhD in computer science: any developer can build something great on ChatGPT and other platform models in one weekend. “
“This wave of AI could be bigger than mobile phones or the cloud and beyond on a scale like the Industrial Revolution that changed the course of human history,” Hu said.
