🧠 Elon's X.AI vs. OpenAI || 🚫 Montana Bans TikTok || 🐦 Twitter Blue: 10k Characters, More!

📝 Update 2023-04-17

Headlines for today’s Business Edge update.

• 🐘 Big Tech

  • Montana Legislature Approves TikTok Ban Amid National Security Concerns

  • Germany and Intel Face Funding Dispute Over €17bn Chip Plant

• 📈 Startups and technology

  • Instagram Enhances Reels Platform with New Features to Attract Creators

  • Twitter Blue Extends Tweet Length to 10,000 Characters and Adds Text Formatting

• ☁️ SaaS and Cloud

  • Zoom Acquires Employee Engagement Platform Workvivo

• 🤖 AI

  • Microsoft Leverages ChatGPT AI to Revamp Digital Ad Business with New Leadership

  • Google Plans AI-Powered Search Engine to Rival Bing and ChatGPT

  • Stability AI Partners with AWS to Offer Stable Diffusion Models on Amazon Bedrock

  • Elon Musk Founds New AI Company X.AI to Compete with OpenAI

  • Health AI Research Brings Progress in Medical LLMs, Ultrasound Assistance, and Cancer Treatment Planning

  • Siemens and Microsoft Collaborate on Generative AI for Industrial Operations

  • Amazon Undercuts Microsoft by Offering Free Access to AI Coding Assistant CodeWhisperer

Let’s get started 👇

🐘 Big Tech

The Big Tech companies that move the market, FANG, and more.

Montana Legislature Approves TikTok Ban Amid National Security Concerns

Montana's GOP-led legislature has passed a bill banning TikTok in the state, citing concerns over potential Chinese spying. If signed into law by the governor, Montana would become the first state to completely ban the app, which is owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance. The ban faces potential legal challenges over its constitutionality, and TikTok has promised to fight the measure, arguing it threatens the First Amendment rights of users and creators.

Germany and Intel Face Funding Dispute Over €17bn Chip Plant

Intel's plan to build a massive chip plant in Magdeburg, Germany, is facing a funding dispute as the company requests an additional €4-5 billion in subsidies due to rising costs. German officials are willing to consider increasing subsidies if Intel invests more in infrastructure. Resolving this issue is crucial for Intel's broader plans to invest €80 billion in the EU's semiconductor industry over the next decade.

📈 Startups and technology

The latest from the world of startups and technology companies.

Instagram Enhances Reels Platform with New Features to Attract Creators

Instagram has introduced multiple new features for its Reels platform to compete with TikTok and appeal to creators. The platform now offers a section with top trending hashtags and songs, a revamped editor for easier alignment and timing, more detailed metrics with information on total watch time and average watch time, and notifications for new followers. Additionally, Instagram is expanding the Gifts feature, which allows fans to financially support creators, to more countries.

Twitter Blue Extends Tweet Length to 10,000 Characters and Adds Text Formatting

Twitter Blue subscribers can now post tweets with up to 10,000 characters, and the platform has also introduced bold and italics formatting. The changes follow Elon Musk's push for longer tweets and come amid competition with newsletter platforms like Substack. Twitter aims to attract more users to its Twitter Blue subscription service, which currently has fewer than 300,000 subscribers out of 250 million daily users.

☁️ SaaS and Cloud

Software-as-a-Service and Cloud-based company news.

Zoom Acquires Employee Engagement Platform Workvivo

Zoom Video Communications has announced its acquisition of Irish startup Workvivo, a company that provides an employee engagement platform for sharing business updates and content. The acquisition aims to improve communication between executives and employees, with Workvivo's platform being used by over a million workers across hundreds of companies. While the financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, the acquisition is expected to close by the end of April.

🤖 AI

Keeping you updated on the latest in AI.

Microsoft Leverages ChatGPT AI to Revamp Digital Ad Business with New Leadership

Kya Sainsbury-Carter has been appointed as the first woman to lead Microsoft's $18 billion digital ad business, following the integration of OpenAI's ChatGPT into Bing search engine. Sainsbury-Carter aims to maintain the usefulness of AI-generated responses while incorporating paid links for advertisers.

As part of Microsoft's renewed push in the digital-ad market under CEO Satya Nadella, the company has acquired ad-related companies like Xandr from AT&T, scored Netflix as an exclusive client, and is working on a $75 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard, pending regulatory approval.

The company is currently testing ads in Bing Chat responses and exploring new ad formats, such as photo and video ads. Microsoft is also working closely with publisher partners to evolve the ad revenue model together and drive more traffic and clicks for them. Sainsbury-Carter acknowledges the need to maintain user experience, ensure relevant engagement, and refine policies for sensitive categories. The company sees AI as a driving force in personalizing and improving the digital ad experience.

Google Plans AI-Powered Search Engine to Rival Bing and ChatGPT

Google is reportedly developing a new AI-powered search engine and enhancing its current platform in response to competition from ChatGPT and Bing. The company is said to have experienced internal "panic" after the potential loss of a $3 billion contract with Samsung. As part of a project called Magi, Google is working on updates to increase personalization in its search engine.

Stability AI Partners with AWS to Offer Stable Diffusion Models on Amazon Bedrock

Stability AI, a leading open-source AI company, has announced a strategic alliance with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to make its Stable Diffusion imaging models and upcoming foundation models accessible to AWS customers via Amazon Bedrock. The fully managed service enables users to quickly integrate foundation models into their applications without managing infrastructure, incurring large costs, or compromising data security.

Elon Musk Founds New AI Company X.AI to Compete with OpenAI

Summary: Elon Musk has established a new artificial intelligence company called X.AI, with Musk as its director and Jared Birchall, the director of Musk's family office, listed as its secretary. The firm, which was incorporated last month, follows rumors that Musk had purchased thousands of GPUs for an upcoming generative AI product and planned to create an AI company to compete with Microsoft-backed OpenAI. X.AI aligns with Musk's branding for his vision of an "everything app," which he has also applied to Twitter under the name X Corp.

Health AI Research Brings Progress in Medical LLMs, Ultrasound Assistance, and Cancer Treatment Planning

Recent health AI research updates have shown significant advancements in medical large language models (LLMs), with Med-PaLM 2 scoring at an expert doctor level on medical exam questions. Partnerships with Jacaranda Health and Chang Gung Memorial Hospital are exploring AI-assisted ultrasound for prenatal care and breast cancer detection, respectively. Additionally, a collaboration with Mayo Clinic aims to optimize radiotherapy planning using AI, and AI-powered tuberculosis screenings are being deployed in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Siemens and Microsoft Collaborate on Generative AI for Industrial Operations

Siemens and Microsoft have partnered to integrate generative AI into industrial operations by combining Siemens' Teamcenter software with Microsoft's Teams collaboration platform and Azure AI capabilities. This collaboration aims to enhance automation and operations through AI-powered software development, problem reporting, and visual quality inspection, to improve workflows and enable more inclusive collaboration for customer-centric innovation.

Amazon Undercuts Microsoft by Offering Free Access to AI Coding Assistant CodeWhisperer

Amazon is offering its AI-powered coding assistant, CodeWhisperer, for free to individual developers, challenging Microsoft's rival product with a $10 per month price tag. Originally available only to Amazon Web Services customers, CodeWhisperer can now be used by all developers, making it more accessible. The tool generates code based on text input and features automatic filtering, security scanning, and support for multiple programming languages. Amazon also announced Bedrock, a platform that helps companies build and scale generative AI apps using foundational models.