Thursday, June 20, 2024

Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning, we've got notes a new AI startup from a former OpenAI co-founder, how AI is actually helping doctors, SpaceX stock discounts, a huge amount of money for an e-commerce search engine, and more. Let's jump in! — Rebecca

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Getty Images

1. AI safety gets a shot in the arm: Former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever has launched a new AI company called Safe Superintelligence. Sutskever was one of OpenAI's co-founders, but left the firm in May after a falling out with its leadership over how to approach AI safety. Read More

2. No, AI hasn't fully taken over, yet: Sometimes it certainly feels like we're in the midst of an AI revolution that's changing the very nature of how we work. But several studies suggest that companies are taking a more cautious approach to implementing generative AI. Read More

3. There's money in making life easier for doctors: Abridge was pitched as a mix of SoundCloud and RapGenius, but for medicine. Now, it's helping doctors avoid burnout by using generative AI to help reduce the amount of time they spend typing notes to summarize what was discussed with patients all day. Read More

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What can good data do for you? - Twilio Segment CDP

Segment helps 25,000+ companies turn customer data into tailored experiences. With customer profiles that update real-time, and best in class privacy features - Segment's Customer Data Platform allows you to make good data available to every team.

Good Data - Segment

Morning Must Reads

Image Credits: Spotify

Spotify wants your eyes now, too: The music streaming app is now letting all podcasters upload videos directly to the platform, regardless of where they host their content. The company has now also surpassed 250,000 video podcasts on its platform. Video, it seems, is becoming core to Spotify's strategy. Read More

Inside SpaceX's stock discounts: TechCrunch got its hands on some internal SpaceX documents that show how good of a deal investors are getting for secondary shares at Elon Musk's rocket company. Read More

The rewards of not doing all that labor: We've talked before about how Apple "borrows" ideas from third-party developers and turns them into new features and apps, a practice called "Sherlocking." A new report has put a price tag on how much Apple stands to make from such features in iOS 18: $393 million in revenue. Read More

Fisker wasn't ready to be a car company: EV startup Fisker, which just declared bankruptcy, failed because it simply wasn't ready to be a car company. It was able to get its Ocean SUVs on the roads because it outsourced manufacturing, but there's more to selling cars than just building them, as Fisker learned. Read More

Kilimo raises $7.5M to save water: Kilimo has found a way to help farmers remotely monitor fields and advise them on water use so they can cut back. If they manage to use less water, Kilimo sells the surplus to a company that needs it, sharing a portion of the proceeds with the farmer. Read More

Meta's OK with its chatbot hallucinating about elections in India: Meta has removed restrictions from its AI chatbot that prevented it from answering election-related queries in India now that the country's elections have ended. Google, however, is still holding firm on its limits as part of its global restrictions on these types of queries. Read More

Bringing e-commerce search into 2024: Daydream raised a massive $50 million seed round to build an AI-powered search engine for e-commerce that will give you personalized shopping results using genAI. It sounds great, but how much of it is AI hype and how much is warranted to solve a problem that retailers and shoppers have? Read More

Breega invests in Africa: Paris-based VC firm Breega has launched a $75 million fund to invest in early-stage startups in Africa. It's another sign that Africa's tech ecosystem is maturing, as there's been an increase in high-growth companies from the continent. Read More

Around the Web

Is Perplexity all that it says it is? Forbes recently accused Perplexity of plagiarizing its content. Now, a Wired investigation has found that Perplexity is able to answer queries in real-time because it surreptitiously scrapes parts of websites that operators don't want accessed by bots, despite claiming it doesn't do that. Read More

Oh, good, money for an AI avatar company: AI startup HeyGen lets users quickly create realistic-looking avatars, and it's just raised $60 million at a $500 million valuation, reports The Information. Just what we need in the era of deepfakes. Read More

Apple Intelligence wants to go to China: ChatGPT isn't allowed in China, which has prompted Apple to look for a Chinese partner to offer its Apple Intelligence service there, reports the Wall Street Journal. Apple has fallen behind local rivals in China, but it has held talks with several companies that make AI models, like Baidu, Alibaba and Baichuan AI. Read More

Before You Go

Image Credits: STILLFX/ Getty Images

Do co-CEOs make sense? Fintech Brex recently abandoned its co-CEO model, which had previously worked brilliantly, but was apparently slowing things down now that the company is in a different stage of growth. But Brex isn't the only company to use this model. On this week's episode of Equity, Haje Kamps and Mary Ann Azevedo questioned whether co-CEOs make sense, and whether Brex is better off without that model. Read More